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Questions tagged [weather]

Questions regarding effects of weather on space exploration and how it can be forecasted and managed on Earth and on other bodies with atmospheres.

21 votes
3 answers
11k views

Why are rocket launches so sensitive to weather?

I've been following the upcoming launch of the Antares rocket to resupply the ISS (scheduled for today, July 13, 2014). This launch was originally scheduled for May, and has been rescheduled multiple ...
11 votes
1 answer
486 views

Perseverance individual sample collection post-mission; what stops them from blowing away or getting covered and hidden by dust?

I have been seeing videos that the plan after Perseverance is done collecting samples to distribute them in 'strategic' locations around Mars for another rover to drive around and pick up later. Why ...
15 votes
4 answers
8k views

What is the warmest place on Mars?

What is the warmest place on the Martian surface? What temperatures are seen there? (day, night, seasons, etc.) I am asking about weather; not anything out of the ordinary such as a volcano.
9 votes
2 answers
167 views

Is there an atmospheric pressure model for Mars that takes different temperatures and seasons into account?

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Above are the pressure data from Curiosity's REMS sensor for the first 200 sols at Gale crater. At about sol 170 Mars was at perihelion and a month later it was southern ...
1 vote
0 answers
97 views

How does the wind behave throughout the day in Jezero Crater? (worried about Ingenuity)

JPL tweet links to mars.nasa.gov's Flying on Mars Is Getting Harder and Harder which explains that seasonal changes are lowering the density of the local atmosphere, presumably due to warmer seasonal ...
18 votes
0 answers
450 views

How did "the kid" (John Meisenheimer) calculate that there was a wave in the jet stream and Explorer 1 would be okay to launch?

The tough but timely question NASA at sIxty years, will there be a new moonshot mandate? links to the NASA YouTube video NASA 60th: How It All Began which shows a lot of really nice, historical file ...
7 votes
2 answers
679 views

How does InSight measure wind speed?

According to this answer to How can I find a daily record of the temperature on Mars? the weather at the InSight lander can now be seen online at https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/ This includes ...
3 votes
2 answers
217 views

What would have happened if lightning struck the Orion LES instead of the umbilical tower?

Yesterday, a lightning struck the SLS' umbilical tower during a scrubbed wet dress rehearsal. Is it normal for a lightning to strike the umbilical tower instead of the 3 lightning arresters around the ...
21 votes
4 answers
11k views

How can Mars have dust storms with such a thin atmosphere?

Mars, as I understand, has a very thin atmosphere. However, it still has weather like this: What causes the thin atmosphere to move fast enough to cause such a monster wave of dust?
8 votes
3 answers
462 views

Might Ingenuity tip over?

While Ingenuity patiently waits for its preflight checks to pass, how likely is it that a wind gust could tip it over? How strong and how rare a gust? Those rotors have plenty of area. (Surely NASA ...
1 vote
0 answers
95 views

Has an aircraft's flight ever been delayed on another planet? If so, who, what, when, where and why exactly?

For the benefit of future readers and our spaceflight-firsts tag: Question: Has an aircraft's flight ever been delayed on another planet? If so, who issued the delay order, what spacecraft's flight ...
16 votes
1 answer
4k views

Would the national flag planted by astronauts on Mars need an upper horizontal pole like the ones on the Moon?

Due to the lack of an atmosphere on the Moon, the Apollo lunar flags had an upper horizontal pole in order to make them fully hoisted, looking like floating in the wind. Now Mars does have an ...
7 votes
3 answers
442 views

Fast spinning solar cells to clear Martian dust possible?

I've seen a fast spinning glass wheel used in front of a camera to clear away water, dust or ice. Could Solar panels be made circular and spin to clear dust off of them in the same way may? As ...
4 votes
3 answers
471 views

How long would astronauts' footprints on Mars persist?

The Apollo astronauts' footsteps can remain theoretically forever on the Moon as it has no atmosphere. Mars does have an atmosphere but a very thin one. Its pressure ranges from 72 Pa (0.0104 psi) on ...
8 votes
1 answer
530 views

Why does Jupiter have the colors it does?

This was sparked by an interesting conversation in the chatroom. We were discussing how Jupiter, being made of gas, has a lot of color. Looking into it, I found this statement, from Universe Today: ...

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