NASA’s Imagination Helicopter captures a bird’s eye view of junk in man-made space on another planet – landing gear that helped him and Perseverance Rover to get to the red planet.
Photographed and captured the remains of a 4-pound imaginative helicopter, the first aircraft to fly to another world, covered in dust, orange-and-white parachutes, and backshells – or protective shields, which housed the slopes. From 26 feet in the air. The photos, shared by NASA on Wednesday, were taken on April 19, 2021, to mark the one-year anniversary of the first entry into the Martian sky.
Perseverance landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, after a seven-month journey of 300-million miles, searching for signs of ancient life.
Officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement that the landing gear was well-held. The backshell acted as a heat shield for the SUV-shaped clutch (and the helicopter stuck in its belly) in a trek far from Earth. While landing on the surface of Mars, the rover deployed parachutes to slow down the parachute and land the landing on the Jezero crater – which was once the ancient river delta.
The backshell shattered after a fierce jump at a speed of about 78 miles per hour, but its protective cover and suspension lines connecting the parachute appear to be intact. Imagery images show only one-third of the 70-foot-wide chute, but “no signs of damage caused by supersonic winds in times of inflation show canopy,” the agency said in a statement.
With both pieces of hardware working as expected, the researchers hope that studying the factors that allow for a safe landing will help them plan for future space missions. From parachute inflation to touchdowns, everything from parachute inflation to touchdowns, Ian Clark, who now leads the effort to bring Mars samples back to Earth at JPL in Southern California, said Ian Clark, “one of the best landmarks in history.
“It would be amazing if they either strengthened the way our systems worked or provided a dataset of engineering information we could use for Mars sample return planning. And if not, the pictures are still unprecedented and inspiring.”
Space junk – artifacts left by humans in our orbit or other celestial bodies, including failed satellites, burned boosters, screwdrivers, parachutes and other remains in human space research – is a growing concern for space agencies. As more satellites are regularly launched into space, the Earth’s orbit is becoming more crowded. This problem is exacerbated every year as old satellites and other objects collide, creating thousands of bits and triggering a chain reaction of collisions. Crowds of satellites orbiting the Earth pose a risk of orbital collisions and threaten future space exploration.
“Protecting the extended space environment is extremely important,” a report from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General concluded in January last year. “Millions of people rely daily on services such as weather forecasting, telecommunications and global positioning systems, they need a stable space environment.”
Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person. “My concern and fear is that pollution will make it very dangerous to go into space in 20 years,” Ram Jakhu, an associate professor and acting director at McGill University’s Institute of Air and Space Law, told Wired last year.
“We’ve polluted the Earth to the left, to the right, and to the center. We’re going to do the same in space. We have to call a wake-up call or things are going to get serious.”