Rover landing on Mars today
 

Live now, I'm sure there other ways to watch this.

PBS Newshour WATCH LIVE: NASA's Perseverance rover landing on Mars


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Doesn’t it land tonight, like around 7:15?

Or is it getting there early? :D

Just started streaming.

Streaming. Nasa Channel on Roku.

No. Before 4:00, streaming now.

Timeline and other ways to watch: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/world/mars-perseverance-rover-landing-scn-trnd/index.html

Well, here’s hoping they actually land this one.

I‘d hate to see them repeat the big splat.

I didn't even noticed its happening now. Thanks for the heads up. An old client from a couple years back is a big cheese at JPL and she's heavily involve with this. I need to call her for a congrads chit chat.

eh??

No US mission has "splatted" in the last 21 years

But, which one was the big splat? You know, the really big one. The smoking hole in the ground.

Wasn't that about 20 years ago when the engineers mixed up metric with standard (ours) on one or more of the landing systems?

That one burned up before they even got to Mars. Came in a little hot... The big splat was an ESA mission. I think the splat could be seen from space.

That was an orbital mission from 1999. The mix up in brought the orbital insertion burn too close to the planet where it either entered the atmosphere and crashed on the planet or was flung out to a solar orbit. Either way the Mars Climate orbiter was lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter


The Mars Polar Lander had a faulty sensor shut off the landing sequence 40 meters from the surface also in 1999. It landed hard enough to destroy the lander but it wasn’t a 100+ mph crash.



As it turns out the Beagle 2 actually soft landed on Mars, but a problem occurred when the petals of the lander began to unfold. It did not completely unfold after landing. The transmitter was never deployed so it could not communicate back to earth. 11years later a Russian space enthusiast using publicly available NASA images found the Beagle 2 in its partially unfolded state. Photos can be seen on the Wikipedia link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_2


EDIT: Now I remember “the Big Splat.” It happened in 2016.

https://exploration.esa.int/web/mars/-/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module

The ESA lander Schiaparelli hit the surface at 186mph (300km/hr) Here are some photos . . .

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37731671

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