Mars Perserverance Rover's Parachute Contained Secret Message

rufey writes: The 70 foot parachute used to help NASAS's 2020 Mars Perserverance rover land last week had unusual patterns in its nylon fabric. It turns out it was hiding a slogan. Decoded the slogan is “Dare Mighty Things” — a line from President Theodore Roosevelt — which is a mantra at JPL and adorns many of the center’s walls

Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out “Dare Mighty Things” in the orange and white strips of the 70-foot (21-meter) parachute. He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission’s headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Clark, a crossword hobbyist, came up with the idea two years ago. Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was “super fun,” he said Tuesday. Only about six people knew about the encoded message before Thursday’s landing, according to Clark. They waited until the parachute images came back before putting out a teaser during a televised news conference Monday.