'Curiosity' - NASA Mars Rover - Due to land 5th Aug 2012
Discussion
Eric Mc said:
Interesting comparison of size between Curiosity and its predecessors.
Pathfinder looks tiny in that photo, how hard would it be (for NASA, not us on this forum) to land half a dozen immobile weather stations about that size in one go? Pack them all into one rocket, put that in a polar orbit around Mars, then drop them off one by one around the planet. Give them enough power for a couple of Mars-years and we'd have a hell of a lot of data about the Martian weather patterns (I see a lot of the temperature readings are from the Viking lander site only), the transmitters wouldn't need to be that powerful as we have a couple of satellites in orbit to bounce the data back from.Is there any scientific merit for this? To me it seems a logical step if one day we hope to have a settlement of some description there.
Getting a spacecraft into a polar orbit around Mars would be quite tricky. You would need a fair amount of energy to lift the probe above the plane of the ecliptic as it travelled from Earth to Mars and then to circularise its orbit around Mars in a North/South or South/North orientation.
FunkyNige said:
To me it seems a logical step if one day we hope to have a settlement of some description there.
Would we need to worry about what the weather did at the poles to colonise Mars? You only need a small area in the best place. Other than temperature and windspeed - so you could design suitable habitation - what weather would you need to know about?
Simpo Two said:
FunkyNige said:
To me it seems a logical step if one day we hope to have a settlement of some description there.
Would we need to worry about what the weather did at the poles to colonise Mars? You only need a small area in the best place. Other than temperature and windspeed - so you could design suitable habitation - what weather would you need to know about?I understand there are a few places that are better.
Simpo Two said:
FunkyNige said:
To me it seems a logical step if one day we hope to have a settlement of some description there.
Would we need to worry about what the weather did at the poles to colonise Mars? You only need a small area in the best place. Other than temperature and windspeed - so you could design suitable habitation - what weather would you need to know about?Mars rotates on its axis once every 24.5 hours (very similar to an earth day). If a satellite is orbiting from pole to pole, the planet rotates underneath it and, over time, the satellite will be able to cover 100% of the planet.
If the orbit is equatorial, which is more normal for probes, then the satellite only gets to see a fairly narrow equatorial band of the planet.
So, a polar orbiting probe would be very useful to have. The problem is that more energy is needed to get the path of the probe to Mars into an angle that allows it to enter a polar orbit when it gets to the planet. This requires more rocket power i.e. bigger rockets and more fuel - which equates to more weight taken up by the rocket and its fuel and less by scientific equipment.
Simpo Two said:
Would we need to worry about what the weather did at the poles to colonise Mars? You only need a small area in the best place. Other than temperature and windspeed - so you could design suitable habitation - what weather would you need to know about?
I just mentioned polar orbit as in my head that's the simplest way to drop off small probes from one mothership over a range of latitudes, then using that we can see what areas of the planet has the lowest windpeed, most constant temperature, etc. Besides, this is science and the more we know about everything the better!Someone earlier was asking about Curiousity getting the Mars land speed record, the Twitter feed overnight said it can travel at 1.5 inches/second on hard, flat ground (and also "I'm not out to set Mars land speed records. I brake for science.").
It's also closer to Mars is than our moon is to us, 22 hours to go...
Here are the Ustream links to watch the mission live. There's a recorded news conference streaming now and schedule of the upcoming live streams here:
Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL
One interesting comment they made in this news conference is that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is going to try and capture images of the Mars Rover as it makes it's final approach and landing. That's going to be great if they manage it.
From what I've read, we won't see the first thumbnail images from the Rover itself until a few hours after it's landed and even then they will only be lowish resolution images from the hazard cams. The Mastcams won't be in operation until everything has been checked over and they know it's safe to deploy them, so high res images won't be received until a few days later.
So, even if the Rover makes it onto the surface in one piece, there's going to be a tense few hours before we can see how it's looking down there.
Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL
One interesting comment they made in this news conference is that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is going to try and capture images of the Mars Rover as it makes it's final approach and landing. That's going to be great if they manage it.
From what I've read, we won't see the first thumbnail images from the Rover itself until a few hours after it's landed and even then they will only be lowish resolution images from the hazard cams. The Mastcams won't be in operation until everything has been checked over and they know it's safe to deploy them, so high res images won't be received until a few days later.
So, even if the Rover makes it onto the surface in one piece, there's going to be a tense few hours before we can see how it's looking down there.
Edited by FurtiveFreddy on Sunday 5th August 12:50
Cheer Freddy. Although it will be a while before we get the images, I think the first comms from the rover on the surface will be a welcome relief for the crews. If I understood what he said correctly, I think there will be 3-5mins of coverage from the orbiter following touchdown - during which time the rover will talk to the orbiter which will relay the data to earth. So hopefully we'll know if it was successful reasonably quickly.
Yes, we should know that the landing has gone OK at 22.31 PST (06:31 GMT) + or - a minute. The times they quote take into account the 14 minute delay in getting radio signals back from Mars.
If they don't hear anything at that time, the next opportunity will be 2 hours later when Odyssey overflies the landing site again.
So, if you want to follow the mission from the time MSL enters the atmosphere of Mars, you'll need to set your alarm for 06:15 tomorrow morning, or just stay up all night watching NASA TV.
If they don't hear anything at that time, the next opportunity will be 2 hours later when Odyssey overflies the landing site again.
So, if you want to follow the mission from the time MSL enters the atmosphere of Mars, you'll need to set your alarm for 06:15 tomorrow morning, or just stay up all night watching NASA TV.
Edited by FurtiveFreddy on Sunday 5th August 13:57
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