Guests: John Batchelor, Bill Harwood, Dr. David Livingston.  Topics:  Curiosity on Mars for its 9th birthday, a Perseverance update..  

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John Batchelor and I welcomed back Bill Harwood of CBS Space News to discuss Curiosity at 9.  Bill summarized the landing, the solving of problems like the wheels, the fact that Curiosity has so far traveled 16 miles in total in the 9 years of it being Mars.  Bill also talked about Perseverance, the similar landing on Mars made by Perseverance and the fact that Curiosity was a trail blazer for landing heavy payloads on Mars.  Bill talked about the surprising expansion of the Perseverance helicopter flights on Mars, flying and acting like a scout for the slower moving rover coming up from the behind.  Our guest also mentioned other areas where Curiosity set the stage for what has come after.  Bill got a question about power on both robots so he spent a few minutes talking about the rover RTG power, compared it to the Voyager missions which are still traveling with some power in interstellar space.  We ended our discussion about how the onboard computer and software has evolved from Curiosity to Perseverance. 

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You can email Mr. Batchelor or Bill Harwood through me at drspace@thespaceshow.com.