On Feb. 18, the Mars Perseverance rover, with the Ingenuity helicopter attached to it, will arrive at the red planet and land at 2:30 p.m. our time.
The following link will have activities and great information about the mission:
>> https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/
I encourage you to check out the site and plan to watch the landing via the NASA/JPL sites online dedicated to the event. Landing on Mars is an iffy proposition; half of the attempts made in the past by world nations have ended badly. Success is not guaranteed.
Mars is fainter now in our nighttime sky since it is farther around in its orbit. Visible in the lower west now at dark, it will set by 11:00 PM. There are no humans on this mission, nomatter what we would like to think-a mission to Mars currently takes seven months for traveling. There is no spacecraft capable at this time to make the trip in less time. Nor is it possible to provide food etc. for a mission of at LEAST a year and a half on the Marian surface.
IF a safe landing were made, the astronauts would have to stay on Mars that long for Earth and Mars to be in the proper alignment for the trajectory to bring the humans back to Earth and then the seven-months-long return trip. Talk about “are we there yet”.
The landing plan is the same one used by the successful Curiosity lander, the Sky Crane system. I suggest you check out the Seven Minutes of Terror to understand what is planned to happen. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/curiositys-seven-minutes-of-terror/. The person who dreamed up that system is Adam Steltzner and he has a great personal story to share about how he became an engineer working for JPL, The Right Kind of Crazy.
Perseverance is designed to collect samples of Martian soils from the Jezero Crater, store them in super-clean stainless-steel containers that will be placed on the surface of Mars to be retrieved a few years later with a follow-up return sample mission. Exciting times, for sure.
The Children’s Museum, the South Texas Astronomical Society and the Brownsville Public Library are collaborating online activities prior to the landing and anticipate sharing them with local school classrooms to enhance the event. We will keep you informed as plans finalize.
These space missions take a long time to plan, be vetted and approved, and then the equipment built. Each action is choreographed by humans. Computer programs written, tools designed and built, tests repeated multiple times to be sure the systems work, at least on Earth, and then the waiting to learn if it all works, make the life of these folks in the various space missions quite anxiety-filled.
Thousands of men and women from many different fields work together to get the job done well. And it all starts in the classroom your child is in today.
Our schools are increasing the opportunities for STEAM/STREAM projects to prepare our scholars for the adventure of the career that fascinates them. Science, technology, research, engineering, art, and math all are needed to keep ahead of the curve of innovation in the world.
In spite of the limits facing students, teachers, and parents in the COVID-19 era, the drive to be successful will not disappear. Stay tuned for more on Perseverance and Ingenuity as we get closer to the 18th.
Until next week, KLU.
