Important Innovations

  Ingenuity Lands on Mars                            Source:  NASA Ingenuity Landing on Mars First Helicopter on Another Planet NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity is an aviation wonder.  It is the world's first helicopter to land on Mars after being dropped out of its mother ship Perseverance Rover.  The final drop was 4 inches and Ingenuity's legs fully deployed.  The helicopter's first flight is scheduled for April 11 with data on how its systems performed and what it observed on Mars coming back to NASA on April 12.  These history making milestones are occurring 293 million miles away from Earth.  Technological Marvel Ingenuity is a technological marvel.  It weighs just 4 pounds and unfolds like a butterfly.  The vehicle is solar powered and relies on a rechargeable battery to power an internal heater to stay warm during the harshly cold Martian nights that can go down to -130 degrees F.  The helicopter interior needs to be about 45 degrees F to preserve the sensitive

  SpaceX Launching Experimental Mars Rocket Prototype Source:  Space X "Hop Tests Of Starship" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has plans to colonize Mars.  To take the new colonists, who choose to go there, he's working on an experimental rocket prototype and has been launching it on what he calls "hop tests".  The vehicle is called SN5 and doesn't look like a rocket.  It looks like a large, steel silo with a rocket strapped underneath.  It's been launched to 500 feet and landed with success in late summer 2020 in south Texas.  This prototype is designed to help SpaceX precisely launch and land a huge spacecraft with spot-on accuracy from the Earth to other planets. Starship to Mars SpaceX is accelerating the development of a massive spacecraft and rocket system called Starship which the CEO hopes will carry the first humans to Mars.  He tested a series of prototypes including Starhopper several times in 2019 with some successes and failures. Musk has spent 2020 de

Launch of  Perseverance Rover on July 30, 2020 Source:  NASA Artist Rendering Nuclear Powered Robotic Rover NASA is going back to Mars on Thursday, July 30, 2020.  The Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission includes the rover Perseverance, a $2.7 billion piece of highly advanced robotic technology.  The rover, along with a small helicopter and instruments that it's carrying, will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL. 7 Months Long Journey to Mars The trip to the Red Planet will take 7 months.  And then the rover will make a dramatic sky-crane landing onto Mars' Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. For two years, the nuclear powered Perseverance will explore Jezero.  The crater is 28 miles wide and in the ancient past it contained a lake and river delta.  The rover will search for signs of ancient life, scoop up surface samples and study the crater's geology.  In a joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) project, the samples will be returned to