[HN Gopher] NASA's Perseverance Drives on Mars' Terrain for Firs...
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       NASA's Perseverance Drives on Mars' Terrain for First Time
        
       Author : Bluestein
       Score  : 5 points
       Date   : 2021-03-06 21:39 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mars.nasa.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mars.nasa.gov)
        
       | Bluestein wrote:
       | "NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on
       | Mars March 4, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian
       | landscape. The drive served as a mobility test that marks just
       | one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate
       | every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance. Once the
       | rover begins pursuing its science goals, regular commutes
       | extending 656 feet (200 meters) or more are expected."
        
       | Bluestein wrote:
       | "More recently, the controllers checked out Perseverance's Radar
       | Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) and Mars Oxygen
       | In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instruments, and
       | deployed the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA)
       | instrument's two wind sensors, which extend out from the rover's
       | mast. Another significant milestone occurred on March 2, or Sol
       | 12, when engineers unstowed the rover's 7-foot-long (2-meter-
       | long) robotic arm for the first time, flexing each of its five
       | joints over the course of two hours."
        
       | Bluestein wrote:
       | "Touchdown Site Named
       | 
       | With Perseverance departing from its touchdown site, mission team
       | scientists have memorialized the spot, informally naming it for
       | the late science fiction author Octavia E. Butler. The
       | groundbreaking author and Pasadena, California, native was the
       | first African American woman to win both the Hugo Award and
       | Nebula Award, and she was the first science fiction writer
       | honored with a MacArthur Fellowship. The location where
       | Perseverance began its mission on Mars now bears the name
       | 'Octavia E. Butler Landing.'"
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-06 23:02 UTC)