Mars Helicopter Prepares for Takeoff

Beginning April 2021, the window opens for the first flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. It will be history’s first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet. Ingenuity arrived at Mars on February 18, 2021, riding along with NASA’s Perseverance rover. The duration of Ingenuity’s mission is 30 days, where one or more test flights will be attempted.

As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is testing a new capability for the first time: showing controlled flight is possible in the very thin Martian atmosphere. If successful, Ingenuity could lead to an aerial dimension to space exploration, aiding both robots and humans in the future.

Video (NASA) | Stream on YouTube
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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter can be seen here with all four of its legs deployed before dropping from the belly of the Perseverance rover on March 30th, the 39th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This image was taken by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover's long robotic arm.

Photo (NASA) | #Mars2020
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⁣NASA’s Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own
Article | #Mars2020
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SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft relocated on space station

SpaceX Crew Dragon 'Resilience' was relocated from the forward facing port of the Harmony module to the space-faring port to make way for the arrival of the Crew-2 mission. SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi were aboard the spacecraft for the relocation.

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How the Universe Shapes Our Understanding of Time

Clocks: In a world of booked calendars and packed schedules, it’s hard to imagine life without them. But as it turns out, we’ve been telling time long before their invention. For millennia, people have used the stars to understand and organize the movement of time.

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⁣Mars Helicopter Ingenuity's first flight planned for Sunday April 11th

NASA Invites Public to Take Flight With Ingenuity Mars Helicopter with a livestream confirming Ingenuity’s first flight, targeted to begin around 7:30 am UTC Monday, April 12th.

The helicopter is a technology demonstration with a planned test flight duration of up to 31 days (30 Mars days, or sols). The rover will provide support during flight operations, taking images, collecting environmental data, and hosting the base station that enables the helicopter to communicate with mission controllers on Earth.

Livestream will be available here on YouTube, on Monday

Briefing | #Mars2020
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6 Months After Surviving COVID, 1 in 3 Have Neurological or Psychiatric Problems
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The Hidden Environmental Costs of Electric Cars

As green technologies become more common, scientists are trying to 'green' the lithium-ion batteries that power them. One question being: can we innovate ways to reuse and recycle these complicated batteries?

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Perseverance and Ingenuity

Citizen scientist Seán Doran created this mosaic of NASA's Mars rover Perseverance and Ingenuity helicopter, using 62 images captured by Perseverance on April 6th.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Seán Doran

Photo | #Mars2020
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Monkey MindPong

Pager, a nine year old Macaque, plays Mind Pong with his Neuralink.

At first, Pager is shown controlling a pointer on the screen using a joystick while the Neuralink monitors brain activity.

In the next segment the joystick is removed and he proceeds to play a game of Mind Pong by thinking of moving the non-existent joystick.

Video (Neuralink) | Stream on YouTube
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