Mars Landing Successful!! - The Curiosity Rover
Discussion
Great achievement.
Rather more successful than the disastrous UK Beagle 2 mission.
http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm
Rather more successful than the disastrous UK Beagle 2 mission.
http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm
Ozzie Osmond said:
Great achievement.
Rather more successful than the disastrous UK Beagle 2 mission.
http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm
Beagle was a bargain basement mission made up of bits bought at the local Maplins.Rather more successful than the disastrous UK Beagle 2 mission.
http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm
It piggy-backed to Mars attached to the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter - which has worked wonderfully and continues to work wonderfully.
There was an interesting Radio 4 program on this prior or after its attempt on the work to get to Mars (memory and all that as to when). Very interesting, the program did go on about the mass spectrometer being redesigned to the size of a fag packet. Now I am no expert in this and don't know what it really does and what size they should be but the program was suggesting stuff had been l done that can be used in future missions. Also, cost was a big factor. I suppose you could say the failure is in good company with the other two nation backed orgs getting it wrong.
laboratory mass spectromters range in size from about big-CRT TV sized to about half-a-car size typically. of course they don't have to be small and they don't have to survive a journey to mars and an atmospheric entry... so making a rugged, miniature mass spec is a pretty good achievement.
The component level equipment surviving the landing isnt the hard part...actually its the easy part. The landing being the hard part is for the system level equipment. The hard part for the component level stuff is designing it to the mission requirements then meeting all the GRDs and PARs.
NASA fortunately is a little bit more supportive of industry than ESA which sets stupid requirements at times. Making stuff isnt often the hard part, its doing it to match the Standards body and their material and process requirements to fit in with the mission profile.
Buggies are good fun, I had the ExoMars rover in its sandpit outside my office last yr.
NASA fortunately is a little bit more supportive of industry than ESA which sets stupid requirements at times. Making stuff isnt often the hard part, its doing it to match the Standards body and their material and process requirements to fit in with the mission profile.
Buggies are good fun, I had the ExoMars rover in its sandpit outside my office last yr.
Eric Mc said:
..... And of course, the UK has a 100% failure rate - one probe, one failure.
But that was a Decepticon that trashed it
As for Curiosity what an achievement. I would love to have been in the meeting where someone first suggested the sky crane. Top marks for being bold and succeeding.
Fantastic news. It was a very ambitious feat of engineering considering the success rate of Mars missions. Will be interesting to see what data comes from this in the future.
In a slightly related note, I sometomes wonder how frustrated the scientists/engineers get with the long travel times vs. the advances in technology. Not so much a factor in this mission, but the longer-range probes like Cassini which take 6+ years to get to their destination. Just think how much better technology has got in that time, part of me would be sat there thinking "damn, we could be doing this with it now"
In a slightly related note, I sometomes wonder how frustrated the scientists/engineers get with the long travel times vs. the advances in technology. Not so much a factor in this mission, but the longer-range probes like Cassini which take 6+ years to get to their destination. Just think how much better technology has got in that time, part of me would be sat there thinking "damn, we could be doing this with it now"
AnimalMkIV said:
In a slightly related note, I sometomes wonder how frustrated the scientists/engineers get with the long travel times vs. the advances in technology. Not so much a factor in this mission, but the longer-range probes like Cassini which take 6+ years to get to their destination. Just think how much better technology has got in that time, part of me would be sat there thinking "damn, we could be doing this with it now"
An interesting thought. I don't know this for sure, but my guess would be that they don't use bleeding edge tech on space missions anyway. (Shock!!) Instead they prefer to use PROVEN tech on space missions.Which is one of the reasons why Curiosity's mast cam is about 2 mega pixles, and not 14. You can get consumer grade cameras with 14 mega pixels, BUT they've not been through the same testing to make sure they will work with reliability on Mars.
It's better to send a 2MP camera which you KNOW will work, vs. a 20MP camera which might work. So the tech could be said to be 'superceeded' before the craft even leaves earth.
mrmr96 said:
An interesting thought. I don't know this for sure, but my guess would be that they don't use bleeding edge tech on space missions anyway. (Shock!!) Instead they prefer to use PROVEN tech on space missions.
Which is one of the reasons why Curiosity's mast cam is about 2 mega pixles, and not 14. You can get consumer grade cameras with 14 mega pixels, BUT they've not been through the same testing to make sure they will work with reliability on Mars.
It's better to send a 2MP camera which you KNOW will work, vs. a 20MP camera which might work. So the tech could be said to be 'superceeded' before the craft even leaves earth.
Yeah, that's a possibility, although with the camera, isn't data size the restriction rather than reliability? Curiosity has only very limited transmitting power and data has to be bounced from at least 1 satellite to get back to Earth, 2MP is probably the best compromise between image quality & data size.Which is one of the reasons why Curiosity's mast cam is about 2 mega pixles, and not 14. You can get consumer grade cameras with 14 mega pixels, BUT they've not been through the same testing to make sure they will work with reliability on Mars.
It's better to send a 2MP camera which you KNOW will work, vs. a 20MP camera which might work. So the tech could be said to be 'superceeded' before the craft even leaves earth.
So communication is difficult from Mars to Earth?
Do you think that there will be an effort to set up a few satellites around Mars that will be used to improve planetary coverage for the rovers and possibly increase the speed of comms from Mars to Earth?
This would surely be a requirement for future manned exploration as it would be a longer term mission?
Do you think that there will be an effort to set up a few satellites around Mars that will be used to improve planetary coverage for the rovers and possibly increase the speed of comms from Mars to Earth?
This would surely be a requirement for future manned exploration as it would be a longer term mission?
There are a couple of orbiting spacecraft around Mars right now - and they ARE being used as relay posts for communications.
However, they are not ideal for this as their primary Mars observation missions means they have relatively low orbits around the planet. This means they cannot be in constant communication with a lander or rover sitting on the surface. For that to be possible, we would need three satellites in geostationary orbits around Mars which means that the landers would always have a satellite above the horizon no matter where they were on the surface.
That might be a must for a future manned mission.
However, they are not ideal for this as their primary Mars observation missions means they have relatively low orbits around the planet. This means they cannot be in constant communication with a lander or rover sitting on the surface. For that to be possible, we would need three satellites in geostationary orbits around Mars which means that the landers would always have a satellite above the horizon no matter where they were on the surface.
That might be a must for a future manned mission.
Eric Mc said:
There are a couple of orbiting spacecraft around Mars right now - and they ARE being used as relay posts for communications.
Is that where all my Vodafone texts come from offering PPI claim services? 
Yes, the challenge of Mars is enormous. Good to see some real progress in hand.
Ozzie Osmond said:
Eric Mc said:
There are a couple of orbiting spacecraft around Mars right now - and they ARE being used as relay posts for communications.
Is that where all my Vodafone texts come from offering PPI claim services? Yes, the challenge of Mars is enormous. Good to see some real progress in hand.
Its just a question of cost.
DJRC said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
Eric Mc said:
There are a couple of orbiting spacecraft around Mars right now - and they ARE being used as relay posts for communications.
Is that where all my Vodafone texts come from offering PPI claim services? Yes, the challenge of Mars is enormous. Good to see some real progress in hand.
Its just a question of cost.
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