Item number 34-087b: Fasten Wright Flyer swatch to underside of Ingenuity helicopter solar panel.‘ That’s it.
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“We have to run it through the bio team, to make sure it’s free of contaminants, and that takes a week, even if we pull every string and rush every step. So it’s too late now, you know that, right? Launch is in…” He turned to the countdown clock, “… thirty-six hours.” “Well, I don’t know why we’re getting all excited – they didn’t jump fast enough.
Imagine – something from man’s first flight, being part of man’s first flight somewhere other than Earth. The descendants of Orville and Wilbur Wright were thrilled. Actual fabric from the original 1903 Wright Flyer. A gust of air created by the sudden lack of a vacuum lifted the case’s only contents, a tiny plastic bag, out and up, and swirling around, then down toward the floor.ĭave lunged, and just before the bag touched the ground – it was a clean room, there wasn’t a single germ in the whole place, so he wasn’t sure what he was worried about – he caught the bag between his thumb and forefinger.Īnd they froze like that for a moment, Dave on the floor holding up the bag, and Tara standing, arms out as if to catch something, looking down. Instead, they frantically dialed in the lock combination and flung it open. Tara and Dave, the NASA engineers in charge of last-minute prep checks and such, were too excited to carefully open the case that the courier and his armed guard companion had hand-delivered. For the first time in history, humans would attempt flight on another planet.
Yes, Perseverance housed a small helicopter, the size of a toaster oven. And it carried something extraordinary in its belly: a helicopter. A mobile laboratory, it included all the latest instruments for collecting mineral samples, measuring the chemical composition of the atmosphere, taking photos, video, and audio, among other functions. In March of 2021, NASA landed its most ambitious rover on Mars, the Perseverance. “Swatch” Written and narrated by Rob Dircks
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