ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3249 posts, RR: 0 Posted (9 months 3 weeks 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 11329 times:
NASAs Mars rover Curiosity will be landing on Mars at 0131EDT (0531UTC) Monday morning.
Curiosity is targeted to land in Gale crater via the previously untried SkyCrane landing method. Curiosity is much larger and more capable than any previous rover.
This is really exciting. And it must be nerve wracking for the engineers down here to have to wait for over 10 or 20 minutes to know whether the landing was successful.
I'm crossing fingers. We haven't gotten any exciting news from Mars for a while now.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit posting...
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12715 posts, RR: 80 Reply 5, posted (9 months 3 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 10976 times:
The BBC did an hour long doc on this mission last week.
Ambitious mission, including that landing method.
But then you see with that pic above comparing it previous Mars rovers, Curiosity looks more like a 'Transformer'.
Good luck to NASA/JPL.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10481 posts, RR: 20 Reply 6, posted (9 months 3 weeks 1 day ago) and read 10891 times:
Quoting GDB (Reply 6): But then you see with that pic above comparing it previous Mars rovers, Curiosity looks more like a 'Transformer'.
A camel is a horse designed by a committee, and to me Curiosity looks like a camel next to some horses.
Good luck tonight for all involved in this critical landing maneuver.
It's kind of a shame it's happening in the dead of the night, unless of course it doesn't come off well, but I'm thinking that it will come off just fine.
ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3249 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 10886 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 7): unless of course it doesn't come off wel
In which case it will go splat just in time for the monday morning news cycle in the US.
I think it will go well. There isn't as much new with this mission as we are led to believe. Guided entries are fairly commonplace - this is just the first one at Mars. Powered descents have been done at Mars before, this one just isn't powered all the way down.. etc...
Risky? yes, just not as risky as it's hyped to be.
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SLCPilot From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 529 posts, RR: 3 Reply 8, posted (9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 10876 times:
I disagree. Six configuration changes incur significant risk. A mass suspended by nylon cables from a rocket powered platform? What could possibly go wrong!?
While hardly a valid comparison, I tried flying a Tri-copter (look it up) with a suspended mass and it was impossible! I don't claim my fingers are as good as a NASA computer, but it gave me an appreciation for the difficulty involved.
It seems to me it would have been much easier to have the landing go to the surface with a powered descent, and then have the rover roll out of a pod.
My prediction? It ends up rolled up on it's side. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'll be up tonight watching anyway!
Cheers!
SLCPilot
I don't like to be fueled by anger, I don't like to be fooled by lust...
ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3249 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 10859 times:
Quoting SLCPilot (Reply 9): It seems to me it would have been much easier to have the landing go to the surface with a powered descent, and then have the rover roll out of a pod.
This rover was to big for the air bag landing & a legged lander would have been very large with great risk of tipping over. I just heard a JPL engineer point out that with the skycrane method the spacecraft can land on anything it could drive over - this allows them to target a landing much closer to the areas they want to see.
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tugger From United States of America, joined Apr 2006, 4633 posts, RR: 7 Reply 10, posted (9 months 3 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 10784 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 7): A camel is a horse designed by a committee, and to me Curiosity looks like a camel next to some horses.
Now I know it's a joke, and I'm sure you know, but truth is a camel is a very well designed animal for its environment. It will outlive any wild horse and if in the desert I would rather a a camel than a horse. Like I said, I do realize it's a joke....
Oh and shouldn't the "committee camel" actually be f**king the "single creative vision" horse? I mean that's what committee's do isn't it?
.
Quoting ZANL188 (Reply 8): In which case it will go splat just in time for the monday morning news cycle in the US.
I think it will go well. There isn't as much new with this mission as we are led to believe. Guided entries are fairly commonplace - this is just the first one at Mars. Powered descents have been done at Mars before, this one just isn't powered all the way down.. etc...
Risky? yes, just not as risky as it's hyped to be.
I actually just had a friend relay a conspiracy theory to me, that the landing is so complex so that people will be OK and expect it when it does fail because NASA didn't spend the funds on the mission but instead spent them elsewhere (so I guess it's just a box of scrap parts that it about to hit the surface). I explained that it would be a conspiracy of thousands all going along with it and keeping the secret. But I can believe some people believe this.
For me, I will be watching tonight and since I'm on the west coast the timing is great! I am really hopping to see some images from Mars before I go to sleep.
Tugg
I don’t know that I am unafraid to be myself, but it is hard to be somebody else. -W. Shatner
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16826 posts, RR: 57 Reply 11, posted (9 months 3 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 10755 times:
Quoting tugger (Reply 11): I actually just had a friend relay a conspiracy theory to me, that the landing is so complex so that people will be OK and expect it when it does fail because NASA didn't spend the funds on the mission but instead spent them elsewhere (so I guess it's just a box of scrap parts that it about to hit the surface). I explained that it would be a conspiracy of thousands all going along with it and keeping the secret. But I can believe some people believe this.
Why would anyone believe that they would go to all that effort to send a bucket of bolts to Mars?
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12715 posts, RR: 80 Reply 13, posted (9 months 3 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 10707 times:
Well done NASA/JPL!
Thinking back, though the landing method seemed extra risky, there was the 'bouncing airbags' of previous missions, which if anything, seemed even more risky. And they worked.
Looking forward to this beast of a Rover powering up and trundling away.
tugger From United States of America, joined Apr 2006, 4633 posts, RR: 7 Reply 14, posted (9 months 3 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 10706 times:
Huge congratulations to NASA, JPL, and the entire Mars Curiosity team! An amazing job! Just incredible.
Of course now comes the hard part. The next one hundred thousand steps and processes have to occur and get the thing actually working! But it's only one hundred thousand or so, I guess not bad in the grand scheme of things....
First image: a wheel on Mars!
Tugg
[Edited 2012-08-05 22:58:12]
I don’t know that I am unafraid to be myself, but it is hard to be somebody else. -W. Shatner
rc135x From United States of America, joined Aug 2007, 161 posts, RR: 2 Reply 15, posted (9 months 3 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 10677 times:
Well done NASA and especially to my best friend and college room mate there at JPL mission control who has overseen Curiosity and all of the previous rovers.
KC-135A, A(RT), D, E, E(RT), Q, R, EC-135A, C, G, L, RC-135S, U, V, W, X, TC-135S, W
travelavnut From Netherlands, joined May 2010, 1381 posts, RR: 5 Reply 17, posted (9 months 3 weeks 14 hours ago) and read 10616 times:
Quoting SLCPilot (Reply 9): My prediction? It ends up rolled up on it's side. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'll be up tonight watching anyway!
Luckily you were wrong!
Was watching live this morning in Amsterdam from my bed before going to work. Been following this project since the beginning and I cannot believe it all went so smooth!
Following the live press con now, landing is described as extremely "clean".
Yes, and hopefully we get to see the real HQ stuff soon.
It's always a bit surprising to see that the first pictures on these missions are always low res, grainy, out of focus, black and white pictures when the damn thing carries more Megapixel power than a bus load of Chinese tourists.
But then I'm not very familiar with uploading digital pictures from another planet. And maybe it was night time on Mars...
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit posting...
charlib52 From United States of America, joined Apr 2004, 164 posts, RR: 20 Reply 23, posted (9 months 3 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 10405 times:
Quoting francoflier (Reply 21): But then I'm not very familiar with uploading digital pictures from another planet. And maybe it was night time on Mars...
Mars rotates like the Earth, and Curiosity's landing site had rotated out of view from the Earth just prior to touchdown - so the Mars Odyssey satellite orbiting the planet actually relayed the first few thumbnails on behalf of Curiosity. But Odyssey, being a rotating satellite itself, also went out of view from Curiosity ~2-ish minutes after landing if I remember from last night. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is also acting as a relay. So that's the reason it was small - they wanted to get one taken real quick and send before waiting for Gale Crater to rotate back into Earth view (and/or one of the Mars satellites come into view to act as a relay). Plus I think they wanted telemetry data more at first than too many pics.
I think they even were able to use signals from Odyssey and MRO to act as a mini GPS-like system. All very fascinating, if you ask me, that we have a whole bunch of assets in orbit and on the surface of another planet!! It's really just dang cool!
I find this part very interesting - it's like our own Martian broadcast network. Wonder what channel it is...
25 wingman: Radio Free Space man...in time for China to tune in when they land on the Moon. Amateurs!
26 Revelation: I'm betting that you are jumping to conclusions, and that it take pictures in color, as well as in many other spectrums like ultraviolet and infrared
27 autothrust: True, it's just a dissapointing picture. I expected something like spirit and opportunity images. I know that thing can make pictures from infrared t
28 travelavnut: Never satisfied huh? First MER pics came after a few hours, this was a few minutes... The reason for this very VERY first picture is simple; - To che
29 comorin: (checkmark) PLUS the glass cover was on that camera to protect the optics from the dust kicked up on landing.
30 autothrust: You are right, i stand corrected. That makes sense. I will be waiting with pleseant anticipation to this pictures. [Edited 2012-08-06 08:00:09]
31 travelavnut: You're not the only one!!! Besides the really great science I am really looking forward to some truly awesome imagery. I was already amazed by the so
32 Areopagus: Will there be a communications blackout near conjunction? If so, for how long?
33 flood: Cool image of the descent taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:
34 tugger: That is one of the most amazing aspects to me too. We have actually begun the colonization of Mars when you think of it. We just use robot explorers
35 LimaNiner: Some of the details of this entire operation were just amazing. Did anyone else notice fairly early during EDL, they jettisoned a 168kg block of tungs
36 GDB: And apart from the exploration and discovery potential, projects like this maintain, improve upon important technical, engineering and scientific ski
37 canoecarrier: I followed the landing last night on Twitter. It really was amazing how many people were on and following it at what was around 10:30 PST here. IMO NA
38 DocLightning: Which is one of the most awesome, slam-dunk space images of all time, really. Never before has one robotic spacecraft taken a picture of another robo
39 ZANL188: HiRise has gotten images of landing spacecraft before, at least once, Phoenix 4 years ago. http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/05_26_pr.php IIRC it's also
40 boacvc10: .... for accomplishing, what will be referred to by future generations as, "the first interplanetary 'hole-in-one' shot from Earth to Mars". BOACVC10
41 Revelation: NASA is doing a good job indeed, but I don't think it's resources are all that limited. I'm glad they are focusing on high value science missions lik
42 spink: Well if they did things right, ISS would be an intermediate assembly and launch point... I do agree that the current design and use of the ISS is at
43 ZANL188: The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced someone should have designed in a big "JPL" on the top of that 'chute!
44 rwessel: Only if the moved it to a much less inclined orbit. Which isn't going to happen.
45 boacvc10: It should not be that difficult to move the ISS anywhere, the mechanics of such movement are well understood, and the ISS is boosted ("moved") period
46 rwessel: It's not a technical difficulty. The energy requirements are immense. To make a 34 degree plane change (56 to 22 degree inclination) on the (approxim
47 jollo: Not only that: for the parachute deployment and deceleration phases, the descent stage needed to be "balanced" again (center of mass aligned with geo
48 travelavnut: Here you go buddy; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGMDXy-Y1I
49 jollo: Thanks so much. Wasn't that difficult to find, after all (should have re-cheked NASA's website)... Awesome video, if you consider it's coming from *a
50 Revelation: Thanks, I sent that around to my FB buddies and have gotten a lot of likes from it!
51 comorin: Looks like it'll be another week before the dust caps are taken off the lenses as nasa.gov - be prepared for some stunning hi-res pics!
52 canoecarrier: I can't link to the photo from my tablet but NASA just released the first color photo this morning. They have been good at releasing updates on twitt
53 Revelation: It leads to https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232829705504571392/photo/1/large
54 nomadd22: Nonsense. That inclination only has about a 6% payload penalty and makes it more accesable for partners. It's location has nothing to do with it's po
55 canoecarrier: From the picture they must have been overly optomistic. It appears it landed on a rock They couldn't have picked a better place to land the rover. Th
56 comorin: Don't even say that in jest! It could be the beginnings of a whole new conspiracy theory.
57 AF1624: That sentence just made me dream. That could be someone's back yard, tens or more probably hundreds of years from now. Shame I was born so early. Ima
58 jollo: Just out of Curiosity (no pun intended ): a 6% penalty relative to what? Launching to a Hohmann-like (least energy) transfer orbit from LEO should be
59 nomadd22: Departure from 51 would be a matter of luck. Some parts of the year the plane will line up with your course and no penalty. Other parts of earth's or
60 jollo: I'm having a hard time visualizing this... I'll think it over when I'm less sleep-deprived. In the meanwhile, if you know of any nifty diagram to mak
61 travelavnut: Guys, a question; Using the excellent NASA Eyes on the Solar System ( http://eyes.nasa.gov/ ) I noticed that the Sun is between Mars and the Earth aro
63 nomadd22: My apologies to Rwessel. Now that I think of it, it's worse than I thought. I was just thinking of getting to the station/depot/whatever. You pretty
64 canoecarrier: Hey, don't blame me! NASA's doing all they can for the tin foil hat crowd. "You would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a
65 comorin: That indeed is read meat for the tin foil crowd! - Interesting read. Next the fiscally prudent crowd will be wondering why we didn't just send Curios
66 LimaNiner: Here are NASA's latest photos of the tungsten ballast(s) hitting the surface of Mars: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16015.html
67 autothrust: Amazing sight. Sadly it's not colored. Keep the good work up NASA!
68 comorin: I prefer b&w to false color...ordinary folks like me want to know what things really look like. I would have also been OK if this had just been a
69 tugger: Actually one of the exciting things this time is the cameras on the Curiosity are "true color", in other words not a black and white that has the col
70 MadameConcorde: I've been very busy and had hardly any time to follow the Curiosity Rover landing. This is fantastic. Congratulations to all involved making this a su
71 Revelation: Agreed, absolutely amazing! Congrats to NASA and everyone involved! Now, let's get that Martian Minivan rolling!
72 travelavnut: Don't forget the hilarious SarcasticRover twitter account; https://twitter.com/SarcasticRover A few gems; SarcasticRover @SarcasticRover Just noti
73 comorin: Thank you, Tugg. It might have been nice if Curiosity could have a tracking 'cameraman' robot filming its adventures! I looked up the bios of the fol
74 rwessel: Well... It's always nice to get one of these spectacularly wrong... Even worse when the numbers are obviously wrong. Actually, those numbers are just
75 jollo: Your revised numbers, however, reinforce the same conclusion: if the goal is to stage interplanetary missions out of an orbital assembly/fueling plat
76 rwessel: As a practical matter, we seem to have large enough boosters for even quite large probes. I could see needing something extra large for something lik
77 rwessel: Although it was talked about before the Russians were brought on board, and the planned station was moved to a much more inclined orbit to accommodat
78 jollo: You're quite right: "never" is a tricky word to use, I should have said "since 1993, that is, 5 years before the launch of the first ISS component".
79 autothrust: There is a amazing panorama picture from curiosity, made by a fotographer Andrew Bodrov. Enjoy! http://www.360cities.net/image/curio...rtian-solar-day
80 travelavnut: Awesome!!! I hate to bump my own question, but does anyone know the answer?
81 rwessel: Not knowing the specifics for MSL, but... Short answer: No. Long Answer: In general the closer to the Sun (from our perspective) the more the Sun wil
82 nomadd22: Not that rare. Mars is actually blocked by the sun something like 15% of the passes. But even if you could still see it 1/2 degree or so from the sun,
83 travelavnut: Thanks guys, much appreciated! Forgot about the possibility of a different orbital plane, always had the idea they were basically the same. Having si
84 connies4ever: Long overdue: to the EDL team at JPL, WAY TO GO !!! A total tour de force, using an EDL system and technology that was untried (at least all-up). You
85 ZANL188: Outstanding imagery of this landing as well... This one shows heat shield impact... http://youtu.be/vVLPXfF3l_U
86 comorin: Ouch. Hopefully, no Martians were hurt in the filming of this sequence. Seriously, these pictures are just amazing, as is the whole effort. Wish ther
87 travelavnut: And the full landing video in HD from the MARDI is here! Looks out of this world http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RyBffhiOuV
88 tugger: Well.... it actually IS out of this world! Tugg
90 travelavnut: Haha, touché! Just a small heads-up, in 35 minutes (10AM PDT) a live telecon will be broadcasted at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
91 travelavnut: Generally good news on the telecon, they tested the arm by extending it using all the joints, also they stowed it again successfully. They jiggled the
93 boacvc10: Hi, with a long answer, the result should be "yes". I proposed a two-constellation network of relay satellites to allow 24x7, 1 Gbps or greater commu
94 jollo: For anyone with an access to IEEE digital library, I suggest this excellent (if a bit dated) paper for a general discussion of the topic. From the ab
96 autothrust: My big wish to NASA: Please show us a high quality color picture from Mars which was not enbrighten, filtered or colored or manipulated. Which shows h
97 tugger: As near as I can discern, the last picture in this "panorama" is a "true color" picture of Mars. It was taken by Curiosity's true color camera's and
98 nicoeddf: Is it just me seeing those pictures and have this feeling of craving for the stars in the nights' sky?
99 autothrust: Thanks a lot!!! However after seeing the different pictures in this panorama. How is it possible all the pictures have all different colors. (much mo
100 SSTeve: In the past, with the MER rover missions in particular, there were no automatically acquired "color" images, but rather single-filter greyscale images
101 autothrust: three color filters in front of the camera My question is why even to make black and white pictures. Today there are cameras with 25MP or more and Cur
102 rcair1: Replace "was" with "is" in both statements. What you are seeing has nothing to do with 'true color' - it has to do with image processing and exposure
103 rcair1: Sorry - in my previous post - some of the quoting seems to have broken. The link above is to the image for the D70. The link to the human visual syst
104 SSTeve: No, actually, the CCD on the MER Pancam does not capture color images. It's color filters in front of a detector that dectects photons from near-IR t
105 windy95: The pictures being sent back are incredible. Make you want to go there for a look.
106 rcair1: Yes indeed. We worried about air-shipment. We prefer ocean shipment of sensors.
107 autothrust: On this site you learn always something new. Thanks for explanation. However what i do not understand if you look at the picture of reply 97: How can
108 travelavnut: So? It's still incredible that this is possible in the first place. And it still makes we want to go there for a look.
109 autothrust: Agree, i do not want to play down this amazing achievement. I only blame the way they present the pictures to the public. I would second that!
110 SSTeve: There should be a lot more full color now that MSL's Mastcam can acquire color in a single image, as stated here by a camera engineer. As an interesti
111 rcair1: You are welcome. I do want to correct a fact - the spectral response of the human vision system does not have negative lobes. Negative lobes come in
112 autothrust: But we don't know? This uncertanity is what i blame about to the NASA/ESA. TIFF can be compressed really good and you don't loose pixels wouldn't it
113 maxter: I'm not sure in what context you use the word "blame" in... As rcair1 has gone to pains to explain, unless you make the camera with the equivalent hu
114 autothrust: I know, my issue is the incredible difference in colors between the images. It's like you make a panoramic picture of new york with one camera and a
115 jollo: Not really. Take a snapshot of the same scene, at the same instant, with two different prosumer digital cameras that you would both unhesitantly call
116 rcair1: I suspect "we" do know this - meaning the designers of the camera do. "I" don't know this because I've not paid any attention to how the cameras are
117 SSTeve: Raw to the web with lossy JPEG compression is standard for Mars rovers and Cassini at Saturn, thanks to NASA. Raw data to the PDS after 6 months is s
118 rcair1: I didn't catch that autothrust was talking about consistency between different generations of cameras - I assumed he/she was talking about consistenc
119 autothrust: I do, however i find it less important then the surface colors of our neighbour planets. This picture is close to be true color, according the descri
120 jollo: Talking about photos taken form the *same* camera, I would say that the *data* sent back should be consistent from photo to photo (barring sensor deg
121 SSTeve: Here's a good example of how the narrow spectral bands and hypercolor can be scientifically useful: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/i....php?act=at
122 canoecarrier: Apparently, Curiosity has found evidence of an old streambed on Mars now. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120927.html My degree is in
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