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As opposed to Percy, which had no parking orbit while it fine tuned where it was going to land for weeks...
Percy basically went from launch straight to Jezero crater, a pre-planned 2 kilometer circle where it picked the best spot using it's on-board computer, then landed exactly where it was supposed to.
To hell with all the dithering and fine tuning everyone else has to do. A lot of people don't grasp what an achievement this lander was. This was the equivalent of a hole in one from 700 yards out in a varying cross wind and the hole was on a 45 degree slope.
Nick
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I agree, I think a lot of people don't understand that Perseverance came in at interplanetary velocity. No stopping to drop into orbit around Mars first. Just drilled right in, and landed 5 meters away from the "official" landing site. And it did it all autonomously, the light lag from Mars to Earth prevented anything remotely resembling "real time" control of the probe and lander.
The video of the chute deployment at supersonic speed, dropping the heat shield, then lowering the lander from the hovering rocket crane was amazing. Landing on Mars is a bitch. Enough atmosphere you have to deal with it via heat shields and a chute, but at the same time the 1% of Earth density means you hardly get any of the advantages either.
I wish I could time travel and show all of that to the Viking lander team. It would blow their minds. (We lower the rover from the rocket crane while it's
hovering...) We are reaping benefits from improved computer tech for sure.
My fingers are crossed the James Webb Space Telescope is as much of a success.