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covering the week's top tech stories
with a slight linux bias seven minutes
of
terror captured on high definition
camera as nasa's mars perseverance made
his descent to the red planet
i'll tell you all about it in a moment
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so on with a story nasa has released the
first of its kind high definition camera
footage of the successful descent of its
perseverance rover
to the red planet michael watkins
director of nasa's jet propulsion
laboratory jpl
in southern california said now we
finally have a front row view to what we
call the
seven minutes of terror while landing on
mars
the mission teams at jpl were able to
get 30 gigabytes of data back
and more than 23 000 images of the rover
making its descent to the surface
perseverance plunged through mars
atmosphere last week with a protective
shell
fitted with four cameras firing rocket
thrusters to slow down its descent as it
approached the surface
one of the cameras was on the back shell
and faced upward
another was on the descent stage and the
other two were on the sides
the combined views are absolutely
stunning
matt wallace perseverance deputy project
manager at jpl
said in nasa's press conference on
monday i think you will feel like you
are getting a glimpse as to what it
would be like to land in the ezreal
crater with perseverance
the ezreal crater is the location of a
former lake from 3.5
billion years ago which many hope will
contain evidence for the existence of
past life on mars the rover entered the
atmosphere at a breathtaking speed of
19 000 kilometers an hour and a
supersonic parachute was then deployed
which slowed down the speed to 320
kilometers an hour
here we see the heat shield being
released and plummeting to the surface
as the descent stage rocket slowed the
rover's speed down to only
2.6 kilometers an hour press advancement
now slowed to subsonic speeds and the
heat shield has been separated
this allows both the radar and the
cameras to get their first look at the
surface
current velocity is 145 meters per
second and an altitude of about
10 km nine and a half kilometers above
the surface
now filter converge velocity solution
3.3 meters per second
altitude 7.4 kilometers now has radar
lock on the ground
current velocity is about 100 meters per
second
6.6 kilometers of the surface
first advance is continuing to descend
on the parachute
we are coming up on the initialization
of terrain relative navigation
and subsequently the priming of the
landing engines our current velocity is
about 90 meters per second at an
altitude of 4.2 kilometers
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ovf valid we have confirmation that the
lander vision system has produced a
valid solution
and part of terrain relative navigation
rhyming
pba is nominal we have timing of the
landing engines
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black shell that privilege is 83 meters
per second at about 2.6 kilometers from
the surface of mars
we have confirmation that the back shell
has separated
we are currently performing the divert
maneuver current velocity is about 75
meters per second at an altitude
of about a kilometer off the surface of
mars
here in safety bravo we have
completed our terrain relative
navigation current speed is about
30 meters per second altitude about 300
meters
off the surface of mars
at about 12 seconds before landing the
rover itself is lowered by cables 6.4
meters long
by a complicated sky crane maneuver and
you can see the dust swirling up from
the surface
during the touchdown
about 20 meters off the surface
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once in landing position the cables are
cut safely releasing
the rover we're getting signals from
mro tango delta
touchdown confirmed perseverance
faithfully
on the surface of mars ready to begin
seeking the sands of past life
so the footage that we're seeing is real
footage of mars now we're actually
seeing real high-res video
as if like this is like from the movies
like this is what we're used to seeing
um visual effects people
put together for us to yeah enjoy but
we're seeing the real thing which
to me i mean some of you may think oh
well that's you know that so they stuck
a camera on a rover and sent it to mars
well this is huge
because we grew up thinking about that
martian planet and things that's right
one day we're going to set foot on that
i didn't see marvin though
no i didn't either but they're looking
they are looking for traces of marvin
that's right boy oh boy so cool
what i'm i'm floored about this yeah
this is like
dreams coming true for all of us who
grew up in that era where
you know it's like oh one day we're
going to see mars and we're going to see
it for real
yeah the technology is so cool and becca
kind of you know she tongue-in-cheek
says it's the the
seven minutes of terror and i wanted to
just kind of briefly touch on what that
means and why
it's called that and and what we have to
understand and remember is that mars is
really far away
yeah really far away so when
the when the rover is approaching mars
and
is about to enter the atmosphere
what nasa is seeing on their feed
is between about 7 to 11 minutes
delayed right so as it hits that
atmosphere
and goes into this automation mode to do
the landing that it needs to do
that they've programmed using tons of
simulations and and
data and mathematics and and all of this
stuff
is now taking place and they know this
is happening right now but we're not
going to see it
for another seven minutes right so you
you don't know if it actually works you
want to speak about
sitting on the edge of your seat after
years and years of
dreaming and planning and and building
and
spending yes oh boy so when that thing
touched down
and they got that feedback i mean seven
minutes after it actually happened
wow yeah what a relief and the fact that
um it was such a high speed
that it was entering 19 000 kilometers
an hour
yeah and that it slows it down and it
works so perfectly to the point that
the platform is hovering yeah like it
slows to 2.6 kilometers an hour which
i think is like walking speed and then
it's just lower than that yeah yeah i
guess
and then it just hovers well yeah okay
14 kilometers an hour
clock me okay i will you've seen me run
into the bridge when something's not
working oh yeah
that's true that's pretty fast like it's
it's using those
thrusters to kind of float then it
releases through cables
like that's some precision engineering
and play and why would they
why on earth are they you know because
it looks exceptional because it's so
cool
no because if the rover were to come
down
it's going to be top heavy because this
thing has flown through space to get
there
right so the fear is is that as it hits
the the martian surface it could flip
over
yeah and then we're done yep so by
building it this way
hovering from a platform and then
lowering it down safely
they've basically completely negated the
the fear
or the risk of it landing on its head
yeah and flipping over when it hits that
surface at whatever speed it hits
yeah or even things like like breaking
the wheels off or
you know oh yeah then you're choking
yeah so it's a
very very controlled descent to the
point where okay boom we're six meters
up
now we're gonna just lower it down
softly yeah
whoo that's so cool
justin mackey perseverance imaging
scientist and instrument operations team
chief said i had no idea that it would
be this amazing
when i saw these images come down i have
to say i was truly amazed
i know it's been a tough year for
everybody and we're hoping these images
will brighten everybody's day
this is it this is mars it really is the
surface of an
alien world so what do you think about
the latest rover touchdown on mars
are you eager to see more high
resolution footage of the planet as the
rover gets to work
do you think any existence for alien
life will actually be found
let us know your thoughts in the
comments below from the category 5
tv newsroom i'm becca ferguson thanks
for watching
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you