3 things you must know about today’s NASA launch for Mars!

A view of the Atlas V rocket, carrying the Perseverance rover, as it sits on the launch pad on July 28, 2020.
A view of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, carrying the Perseverance rover, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 28, 2020. Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

1) The robot explorers include a car-sized rover and a helicopter

The rover, named Perseverance, weighs 2,260 pounds. (For comparison, my 2003 Honda Civic weighs about 2,400 pounds.) Perseverance will explore the Jezero Crater, which once held a river and a lake on Mars. Today, Mars is cold and dry. Perseverance will be looking for signs of water, ice made from water, and signs of ancient, microscopic life.

Perseverance and its specialized equipment will:

  • Collect rocks to send back to earth so scientists can examine them in detail for signs of ancient life.
  • Use radar to search for ice made from water underneath the ground.
  • Test a machine that will generate oxygen from Mars’s carbon dioxide atmosphere.

Helicopter on Mars!

Perseverance will also launch a small, 4-pound helicopter named Ingenuity. This will be a first for NASA and all Earth’s space explorers! Never before have humans operated a rotary-winged aircraft–or rotorcraft–on an alien world.

Ingenuity will help NASA test whether rotorcraft will make good explorers of planets with an atmosphere. Helicopters may make good survey craft that can quickly map large sections of planets and find locations of interest for rovers to examine in more detail.

2) The mission will provide historic audio and video records

Perseverance has 23 cameras and two microphones. Some of those cameras will capture footage of Perseverance’s touchdown on Mars, scheduled for Feb. 18, 2021. One of the microphones will also record the landing.

The other microphone will record Perseverance as it explores the Martian surface and drills into the Martian rock.

3) Perseverance and Ingenuity were named by kids

Alex Mather, a seventh-grader from Virginia, submitted the name Perseverance. Vaneeza Rupani, a high-school junior from Alabama, recommended the name Ingenuity. Both got to watch the launch in person at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

What is the timeline for Perseverance’s mission?

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Perseverance and Ingenuity launched today at 7:50 AM eastern time. Perseverance will travel through space for seven months to reach Mars. A rocket-powered crane will lower Perseverance to the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021. Ingenuity will be strapped to the belly of Perseverance. The two machines will explore Mars for at least one Martian year, which is almost two Earth years.

Perseverance will collect at least 20 rock samples. NASA is planning a joint mission with the European Space Agency to pick up those samples and bring them back to Earth as early as 2031.

You can learn more in a great article for Space.com by author Mike Wall. You can also find Mike Wall on Twitter at @michaeldwall.

NASA also has a really cool mission packet filled with photos and facts.

Plan your Mars mission!

Plan your own mission to the Red Planet. If you were in charge of a NASA mission to Mars, what would you do?

  • Send robots to explore the surface or the atmosphere?
  • Send astronauts to set up a science lab?
  • Send colonists to settle Mars?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

Battleship–repairing a spaceship after battle can be a chance to upgrade

Image of spaceship floating in front of a planet

Repair the Dauntless

In Duel in the Dark by Jay Allan, Captain Tyler Barron fought a desperate space battle at the edge of the Rim to protect the Confederation’s rear flank and now the great battleship, Dauntless, sits in Archellia’s base repair facility. In the sequel, Call to Arms, Capt. Barron needs the Dauntless ready for the front line in an all-out war with the totalitarian Union.

“Tyler Barron stood next to the clear hyper polycarbonate wall of the space station, looking out at his battleship. Dauntless firmly attached to the station by a series of massive docking cradles. He’d been her captain for over a year now, and he had led his ship in one of the most desperate and deadly battles imaginable, yet he realized now that he’d rarely seen her from the outside.

She was beautiful in her own way, almost symmetrical, but with just enough irregularity to give her charm.

Call to Arms by Jay Allan

“The battleship was almost four kilometers long, whitish-gray metal with huge structures projecting out on each side, her landing bays. She was beautiful in her own way, almost symmetrical, but with just enough irregularity to give her charm. At least in her devoted captain’s eyes. Especially now that her wounds had been healed–the outer ones, at least. There had been long gashes in Dauntless‘s hull when she’d arrived back at Archellia, and half her laser turrets had been blown to bits or melted down to slag.

“Barron could see small specks on her hull, barely visible from this distance. Suited technicians, he realized, working all along Dauntless‘s exterior. There were repair boats moving around her too, some of them hoppers carrying supplies, others work ships extending giant robotic arms to repair various damaged areas. Near the bow, two larger craft were easing a large turret into place, a replacement for one of Dauntless‘s destroyed second batteries.”

Choose your upgrades!

Capt. Barron gives the commander of the repair facility only two weeks to finish repairs. The Dauntless‘s own chief engineer, Commander Fritz, returns early from shore leave to speed up repairs. She only has time to choose three upgrades. What should they be?

  • Restore another main gun? The massive particle accelerators are highly advanced and have a long range, but they are also “temperamental and prone to break-down from even the slightest damage.”
  • Add another squadron of bombers to its onboard fleet of ships or opt for the lighter but faster fighters?
  • Reinforce the armor?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

Cyborg parts–machine hands and feet in Sci Fi can do incredible things

Image of metal android
Cover of Cinder by Marissa Meyer

In the Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Linh Cinder is a licensed mechanic living in New Beijing in the Eastern Commonwealth on Earth. “Cinder was the only full-service mechanic at New Beijing’s weekly market. Without a sign, her booth hinted at her trade only by the shelves of stock android parts that crowded the walls. It was squeezed into a shady cove between a used netscreen dealer and a silk merchant, both of whom frequently complained about the tangy smell of metal and grease that came from Cinder’s booth, even though it was usually disguised by the aroma of honey buns from the bakery across the square. Cinder knew they really just didn’t like being next to her.”

Linh harbors several secrets, some that even she does not know. But one is that she is a cyborg, part human and part machine. In fact, she is 32.68 percent machine.

When we meet her in the marketplace, she is removing the cyborg foot she has outgrown. “Her left hand was steel, tarnished and dark between the joints as if it needed a good cleaning.” She hid both her steel hand and her steel foot from everyone, embarrassed that she is a cyborg.

[SPOILER ALERT!!!]

But by the end of the first volume of the Lunar Chronicles, Linh receives the gift of a new metal hand:

“‘State of the art,’ said Dr. Erland. “‘Fully accessorized. Plated with 100 percent titanium. And look!’ Like a child with a new toy, he fidgeted with the hand’s fingers, revealing a hidden flashlight, stiletto knife, a projectile gun, and screwdriver, and a universal connector cable. ‘It’s a pillar of usefulness. The tranquilizer darts are stored in here.’ He opened a compartment on the palm, revealing a dozen skinny darts. ‘Once your wiring synchronizes, you should be able to load it with a simple thought.”

Design your own cyborg hand!

You are a cyborg–a cybernetic organism–about to board a spaceship on a dangerous mission. What will you design for your own cyborg hand?

  • Will it include weapons, such as a knife or gun?
  • Will you include tools, like a screwdriver, wrench or wirecutters?
  • Will you include any exploring tools like a compass, a GPS, or a magnifying glass?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

Star Clusters–Trumpler 14

This star cluster–called Trumpler 14–contains some of the brightest stars to be seen in the Milky Way. The Milky Way is the galaxy where we live.

Trumpler 14 lies in the Carina Nebula, about 8,000 light years away. The Carina Nebula is known for being a major star birthplace or nursery.

What if we called it a Star Farm?

Can you imagine a Sci Fi story set in a Star Farm like Trumpler 14? The seeds have already been planted and the crops of stars are already springing up.

What would the star farmers do?

  • Operate massive solar arrays to collect energy?
  • Siphon off hot gases–like hydrogen and helium?
  • Operate orbiting plant farms?

Please post your comments below.

Be stellar!

Matthew Cross

P.S. The small, dark shape just left of center is the silhouette of a nodule of gas. But it looks like a ship full of eager star farmers to me. MC