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Saturday, 20 February 2021 16:49

NASA's Mars helicopter reports in

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NASA’s Mars Helicopter Reports In
In this illustration, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have received the first status report from the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which landed Feb. 18, 2021, at Jezero Crater attached to the belly of the agency's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The downlink, which arrived at 3:30 p.m. PST (6:30 p.m. EST) via a connection through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicates that both the helicopter, which will remain attached to the rover for 30 to 60 days, and its base station (an electrical box on the rover that stores and routes communications between the rotorcraft and Earth) are operating as expected.

"There are two big-ticket items we are looking for in the data: the state of charge of Ingenuity's batteries as well as confirmation the is operating as designed, commanding heaters to turn off and on to keep the helicopter's electronics within an expected range," said Tim Canham, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter operations lead at JPL.

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Washington DC (UPI) Feb 19, 2021
Three virtual anti-jamming tests of wideband global satellite communications satellites were a success, the U.S. Air Force announced this week. The Space and Missile Systems Center, headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., said the tests will provide advanced anti-jamming support for the Wideband Global SATCOM, the system that provides satellite communications to U.S. fighte
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Toronto, Canada (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led organization leading Canada's Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster, has co-funded a private sector consortium led by MDA that will enable the integration of artificial intelligence, industry 4.0, data sharing, and collaborative robotics into highly flexible, adaptable manufacturing environments. MDA along with partners Promark El
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London, UK (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
The up to 10-week Business Accelerator programme, delivered in partnership with business growth experts from Entrepreneurial Spark and The University of Strathclyde, offers free virtual sessions to help companies with their sights set on space to make progress. Businesses that may not have previously considered the opportunities presented by the space industry can also benefit. Pre-launch
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Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
Cooperative operations between a solar observation satellite and a sounding-rocket telescope have measured the magnetic field strength in the photosphere and chromosphere above an active solar plage region. This is the first time that the magnetic field in the chromosphere has been charted all the way up to its top. This finding brings us closer to understanding how energy is transferred b
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Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
For decades after its discovery, observers could only see the solar chromosphere for a few fleeting moments: during a total solar eclipse, when a bright red glow ringed the Moon's silhouette. More than a hundred years later, the chromosphere remains the most mysterious of the Sun's atmospheric layers. Sandwiched between the bright surface and the ethereal solar corona, the Sun's outer atmo
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Eugene OR (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
Friction caused by dry Martian dust particles making contact with each other may produce electrical discharge at the surface and in the planet's atmosphere, according University of Oregon researchers. However, such sparks are likely to be small and pose little danger to future robotic or human missions to the red planet, they report in a paper published online and scheduled to appear in th
Saturday, 20 February 2021 01:50

Life of a pure Martian design

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Vienna, Austria (SPX) Feb 19, 2021
Early Mars is considered as an environment where life could possibly have existed. There was a time in the geological history of Mars when it could have been very similar to Earth and harbored life as we know it. In opposite to the current Mars conditions, bodies of liquid water, warmer temperature, and higher atmospheric pressure could have existed in Mars' early history. Potential early
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Washington (AFP) Feb 20, 2021
With its impeccable landing on Thursday, NASA's Perseverance became the fifth rover to reach Mars - so when can we finally expect the long-held goal of a crewed expedition to materialize? NASA's current Artemis program is billed as a "Moon to Mars" mission, and acting administrator Steve Jurczyk has reiterated his aspiration of "the mid-to-end of the 2030s" for American boots on the Red Pl
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Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 19, 2021
Less than a day after NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars, engineers and scientists at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California were hard at work, awaiting the next transmissions from Perseverance. As data gradually came in, relayed by several spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet, the Perseverance team were relieved to see the r
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