Perseverance (rover)

• It is the title of the Environmental Symposium organised by the Yacht Club de Monaco in collaboration with The Explorers Club of New York.
• Thisconference took place under the aegis of its ‘Monaco Capital of Advanced Yachting’ approach and as part of Monaco Ocean Week, organised by the Prince Albert II Foundation and the Monaco Government, in partnership with the Monaco Oceanographic Institute & Scientific Centre of Monaco.
• If you want to protect something, it is fundamental to have a deep knowledge of it”, said the Yacht Club de Monaco General Secretary Bernard d’Alessandri.
• The Yacht Club de Monaco continues its programme hosting the 2ndMonaco Smart Yacht Rendezvous to promote sustainable and adaptable solutions for large yachts (over 24 meters).

• "The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
• "That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible, possible.
• The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by NASA JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters.
• At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter.

• The company has a history with DSN dating back to 2004 – including helping the James Web Space Telescope communicate across the cosmos, linking mankind and the moon , and supporting the Perseverance rover on Mars .
• Peraton will provide DSN engineering, testing and sustainment services, mission planning, network operations and support, network operations, network logistics and will manage the maintenance and operation of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California.
• "We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with JPL to further enable assured communications for our Nation's space exploration missions," said Roger Mason, Ph.D., president, Space & Intelligence sector.
• "The Deep Space Network is the critical link that connects NASA's lunar and planetary spacecraft with mission control here on Earth."

• Sixty-five years ago, in 1958, several government programs that had been pursuing spaceflight combined to form NASA.
• From John Glenn’s first flight into orbit to the Hubble telescope, the agency’s legacy has inspired generations of scientists.

First flight into orbit

• My first grade teacher, Ms. Ochs, told the class that we would be doing something different on that day.
• When the rocket got high enough, Glenn in the Mercury capsule – the cap – would separate from the rocket and go into orbit around the Earth.
• My class then sat and listened to the historic launch of Friendship 7 carrying Glenn, which was the first U.S. mission to send a man into orbit around the Earth.
• The program proved that NASA could put a manned spacecraft in orbit and bring it back safely to Earth.

A two-person spacecraft

• In 1965, NASA planned to launch the two-person Gemini spacecraft, and I moved on to the fifth grade where my teacher, Mrs. Wein, was also a space enthusiast.
• This was the first time that two piloted spacecraft performed what is called a rendezvous maneuver, where they meet up in orbit.
• Orbital maneuvers like this require very precise calculations and a spacecraft in which astronauts can make path changes in orbit – which is what the Gemini capsule was designed to do.

On to the Moon

• The Apollo 11 Moon landing happened in July 1969.
• In December 1972, when I was a senior in high school, Gene Cernan became the last person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission.
• Like many of us who witnessed the Apollo missions, I listened to Cernan’s final words from the Moon, where he challenged young people to continue what NASA had begun.

After Apollo

• For one, the ability to guide unmanned robotic spacecraft anywhere in the solar system was a byproduct of the technologies necessary for the manned Apollo missions.
• Perhaps the most ambitious of these is the Mars Perseverance Rover, which looks for chemical evidence of past or present life on Mars.
• The Hubble Space Telescope and its newly launched cousin, the James Webb Space Telescope, have allowed astronomers to get large telescopes above Earth’s optically hazy atmosphere.

Looking ahead

• I hope that today there are elementary teachers like Ms. Ochs and Mrs. Wein who will nurture the wonder and excitement of spaceflight in their students.
• They can watch livestreams, like those of launches of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy in 2018 and NASA’s Artemis I in November 2022.
• When the students I teach today near my age, I wonder what amazing things – about which we can only dream – they will look back on.