Last Updated on April 21, 2021 by Solar System Ambassador Pam Roller
Here’s the latest update from Solar System Ambassador Pam Roller:
NASA’s latest happenings through April 24th
Due to unfavorable weather conditions along the flight path, NASA and SpaceX now are targeting Friday, April 23 at 5:49 a.m. EDT for the launch. The broadcast will start at 1:30 a.m. EDT and will be available here.
April 22, Thursday
Earth Day Event with astronauts on International Space Station
11 a.m. – ISS Expedition 65 In-Flight Event for Earth Day with NASA ISS Commander Shannon Walker, NASA Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei, Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi
3 p.m. – NASA Science Live: “Connected By Earth”
April 23, Friday
1:30 a.m. – Coverage of the launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Endeavour” to the ISS (Kimbrough, McArthur, Hoshide, Pesquet; launch scheduled at 5:49 a.m. EDT) Editor’s note: NASA TV will provide continuous coverage through Friday’s welcome ceremony.
8 a.m. – NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission post-launch news conference
April 24, Saturday
12 a.m. — Continous coverage of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission: docking, 5:10 a.m. EDT; hatch opening, 7:15 a.m. EDT; welcoming ceremony, 7:45 a.m. EDT
Another Giant Leap as NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight
Click link below for all of the details and a quick video of the first flight.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).
The solar-powered helicopter first became airborne at 3:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT) – 12:33 Local Mean Solar Time (Mars time) – a time the Ingenuity team determined would have optimal energy and flight conditions. Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended, touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. Additional details on the test are expected in upcoming downlinks.
Ingenuity’s initial flight demonstration was autonomous – piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms developed by the team at JPL. Because data must be sent to and returned from the Red Planet over hundreds of millions of miles using orbiting satellites and NASA’s Deep Space Network, Ingenuity cannot be flown with a joystick, and its flight was not observable from Earth in real time.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS