Tag Archives: Jezero Crater

Helicopter attached to Mars 2020 rover

Posted on August 29, 2019 by rburnham

Engineers attached NASA’s Mars Helicopter, which will be the first aircraft to fly on another planet, to the belly of the Mars 2020 rover today in the High Bay 1 clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. … Continue reading →

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Hey, students! The Mars 2020 rover needs a great name

Posted on August 28, 2019 by rburnham

Red rover, red rover, send a name for Mars 2020 right over! NASA is recruiting help from students nationwide to find a name for its next Mars rover mission. Starting Tuesday, Aug. 27, K-12 students in U.S. public, private and … Continue reading →

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Australian Outback as testbed for Mars

Posted on August 23, 2019 by rburnham

This week, scientists from NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 mission joined their counterparts from the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission in an expedition to the Australian Outback, one of the most remote, arid regions on the planet. Both teams came to hone … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020 rover gets its toolkit

Posted on August 15, 2019 by rburnham

The bit carousel – a mechanism that will play a key role in the acquisition, containment and eventual return to Earth of humanity’s first samples from another planet – has been incorporated into NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. “The bit carousel … Continue reading →

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Returning space samples links Apollo 11 and Mars 2020

Posted on August 13, 2019 by rburnham

On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 command module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific, fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Among the mission’s many firsts was the acquisition and … Continue reading →

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THEMIS: Jezero Crater delta landing site

Posted on August 12, 2019 by rburnham

THEMIS Image of the Day, August 12, 2019. At the top of today’s VIS image is a delta deposit that was created by the flow from the rim channel into the crater. Deltas form when sediments settle out due to … Continue reading →

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Are scarps on Mars oriented by wind erosion?

Posted on August 7, 2019 by rburnham

[Editor’s note: From a paper by Joshua Williams and three co-authors recently published in Icarus.] Scarp orientation in regions of active aeolian erosion on Mars • Scarps were analyzed in two regions of active aeolian erosion on Mars. • No … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020 rover does biceps curls

Posted on July 26, 2019 by rburnham

The robotic arm on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover does not have deltoids, triceps or biceps, but it can still curl heavy weights with the best. In this time-lapse video, taken July 19, 2019, in the clean room of the Spacecraft … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020 rover power system fueling begins

Posted on July 25, 2019 by rburnham

NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, has given the go-ahead to begin fueling the Mars 2020 rover’s Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or MMRTG. The generator will power the rover and help keep it warm while exploring … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020 rover: T-minus one year and counting

Posted on July 17, 2019 by rburnham

The launch period for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover opens exactly one year from today, July 17, 2020, and extends through Aug. 5, 2020. The mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and land at Mars’ Jezero … Continue reading →

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