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Mars Space Science

Mars Express' 2nd Boom Deployment Postponed 91

Posted by Hemos from the missives-from-the-red-planet dept.
ricshaw2k4 writes "Releasing the second MARSIS radar boom from Mars Express has been delayed after a problem with the first boom was discovered. From the BBC "Officials said 12 out of 13 segments that comprise the first boom had deployed successfully, but segment 10 was not fully locked into place." Lets just hope segment 10 wasn't eaten by the Martians!"
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Mars Express' 2nd Boom Deployment Postponed More

Mars Express' 2nd Boom Deployment Postponed

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  • Late Breaking News: (Score:5, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:43AM (#12478474)


    Yet another chapter in our epic struggle against the disgusting inhabitants of the evil blue planet unfolded today, when it was revealed by the Council that one of the invaders' probes was observed deploying a spindly, antenna-like structure.
    Hopes that the antenna would prove to be benign were quickly dashed, as our scientists determined conclusively that the antenna was designed to emit hazardous low-frequency radio waves, capable of penetrating far underground.

    K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, stress that there was no cause for alarm:



    "This latest nefarious plot by our enemies has successfully been averted. Immediately upon receiving news of this latest aggression, the Council approved an emergency action to neutralize the threat. The structure of one of the segments of the deadly antenna was successfully altered, rendering the device incapable of harm.



    When asked if rumours were true that the invaders' probe was actually outfitted with two of the deadly antennas, K'Breel declined to comment.

    • Re:Late Breaking News: (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sandbox Conspiracy ( 836255 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:50AM (#12478577)
      P'shaw. I, for one, welcome our new Terran overlords.
      • New Terran overlords? You never heard of Captain John Carter? You don't think we're up against our own covert forces here? What kind of conspiracy theorist are you anyway?!

    • In other News: (Score:4, Funny)

      by 01000011011101000111 ( 868998 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:50AM (#12478583)
      Conspiricy-Theorist Magazine Bi-Planetary (famous for it's heretical article "Blue Planet People - Civilized Life?") ran with the headline "R-3 weaponry - the third deadly antenna the Council don't want you to know about"...

    • A "Galactic Ghoul" protecting Mars (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:23PM (#12478962) Homepage
      I've heard it described as a "Great Galactic Ghoul" that protects Mars. At every step on the way, Mars missions have tended to be frought with problems. The Soviet program fared even worse; only about one in five [svengrahn.pp.se] Mars probes that they launched went as planned.

      Some people have suggested that having humans onboard would have helped. In most cases, this is not the case. Only the Phobos probes and perhaps one Viking mission would have had a chance for humans to help the situation, since their problems were computer related. Most accidents were explosions, bad trajectories, invalid atmospheric assumptions, etc - things you don't find out about until it's too late.

      In fact, one mission that was a success could have killed humans if it were to happen: Mars Global Surveyor. A solar panel was damaged (its damper arm was sheared off on launch), and dipping down into the atmosphere to brake like it was supposed to, in order to brake, would have destroyed the probe. The damage wasn't known until the first atmospheric dip, making (on an equivalent manned craft) a spacewalk for repair quite difficult if it were even possible (doubtful, given the damage, unless they brought along entire extra solar panels). NASA solved the problem by suspending aerobraking and letting the orbit circularize much more slowly - delays that humans on board would not have been able to tolerate.

      It seems that there is just so many opportunities for failure en route to Mars that even if chances for a single mistake are miniscule for any given system, the overall failure rate ends up uncomfortably high. We're not going to want to skimp corners when we send people to Mars, that's for sure.

      • Some people have suggested that having humans onboard would have helped. In most cases, this is not the case.

        Some people suggest that because their only experience with such things is watching Star Trek where Scotty/Geordie can simply repolarize the technobabble generator by the commercial break.

        In real life it isn't so easy. In real life you need spares, tools, maintenance and testing schedules, access to the parts to be tested/replaced... All highly non-trivial stuff.

        Oh, my experience? A decade in

  • I TOLD THEM! (Score:4, Funny)

    by null etc. ( 524767 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:45AM (#12478512)
    "Officials said 12 out of 13 segments that comprise the first boom had deployed successfully, but segment 10 was not fully locked into place."

    I TOLD THEM TO CHECK SEGMENT 10!

    Sheehs, my coworkers are all slackers. I told Marco to check ALL the segments, but he winked and said, "What's the probability that segment 10 will fail if all the others are working?"

    BLEH I SHOULD HAVE YOUR JOB, MARCO!

    • Well, assuming that the probability that one segment failure is independent of all other segments, the same as if all the others had failed.
    • And they did check that second segment... Oh wait... That was 10 decimal and not 10 binary...

    • Re:I TOLD THEM TO CHECK SEGMENT 10!

      It has been discovered that the reason is the probe tried to unfold segment 2 twice, since it was reading 10 in binary. The responsible engineer declined to comment, but was overheard saying: "I checked everything 10 times".
    • We all know what really happened. There are actually two robots holding onto the boom, pushing and shoving, trying to protect us from the terrible secret of space.

  • spell check (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    wasn't eaten by fthe Martians

    THE

    So I'm a spelling nazi. Big deal! Sue me.

  • eaten by whaaa? (Score:2, Funny)

    by op12 ( 830015 )
    Lets just hope segment 10 wasn't eaten by fthe Martians!

    Yeah, those fthe Martians. They're the worst kind...

  • Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by RancidMilk ( 872628 )
    We better de-thaw Sigourney Weaver and have her check it out.

    • Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Chyeld ( 713439 )
      I'm all for freezing her, but I'm not sure how having a frozen corpse would help us figure out the issue. Wouldn't be better to thaw her instead?

      • Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)

        by garcia ( 6573 ) *
        I'm all for seeing her levitate above a bed in her night gown. Personally, if I saw that live I wouldn't care if she was frozen, dead, or undead.
  • I believe you needed to capitalize the F in fthe Martians, they get pretty upset if you don't.
  • How do fthe Martians differ from regular Martians? Is "fthe" an acronym? Or the name of their splinter-group? (perhaps the Martian equivalent of Al-Qaeda?)

  • Bait and switch (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:57AM (#12478670) Homepage Journal
    Putting "Boom" in a story about spacecraft always gets my attention.

    Then I read the story. Oh, that kind of boom.

    Had me going for a minute, though.

  • Boom situation is explosive (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:08PM (#12478790)
    "Mission staff will now take the time necessary to investigate the boom situation. Foreseen outcomes include confirming that all segments of Boom 1 have been locked into place and determining how the deployment of Boom 1 may affect that of Boom 2."
    In related news, Mission staff is now taking the time necessary with things they do, as opposed to the 'hunches', 'guesses' and the 'divine insight from God' methods that were used before. With boom1 not acting properly, they have a couple other forseen outcomes: 1) confirming the boom 1 never locks into place and 2) how this has no effect on the deployment of boom 2.
    A new mission has been introduced to send another unmanned robot to massage segment 10 into place and then to quickly self-destruct in order not to interfere with the rest of the mission.
    P.S. Boom 3 cannot be played unless you have a high-end PC with a killer graphics card.
  • He was witnessed using his ACME Disintegration Pistol to knock the Boom out of whack.

  • Field Alignment Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:13PM (#12478847) Homepage
    You can have all of the mechanical engineers that you want, but in real life, nothing beats a mechanic with a hammer, who can give it a good whack in the right place.

  • According to Ivanova (Score:5, Funny)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:14PM (#12478855) Homepage Journal
    "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow."
  • They seem to have a lot of trouble with their equipment, crashes and bent atennas and all that. Makes NASA look good- which doesnt say much.

  • the AE35 antenna unit will fail within 48 hours (Score:5, Funny)

    by toby ( 759 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:18PM (#12478910) Homepage Journal
    Dave, put on your spacesuit and go fix it, will you?

  • Stupid question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 )
    Can't they use the second boom to knock the first boom into place? Is it just me, or does having so many segments violate the "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" rule in the first place? Every joint between segments is a point of failure, it seem like 3 would be sufficient...

    • Re:Stupid question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by macpeep ( 36699 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @12:32PM (#12479057)
      The dipole booms are 20 meters long each, and the center monopole boom is 7 meters. Even when folded into 13 segments, each bipole boom segment is 1.5 meters long. If they were folded 3 times, they would each be nearly 7 meters long and not fit into the launching rocket (a Soyuz).

      In general, you can pretty much assume that if you think the scientists have done a stupid error, then you just don't know the whole story.
  • I told them to use KABOOMS, not just plain old feeble booms. Bleh.
  • one of those Martian dudes who've been squeegeeing off the solar collectors on the rovers, to make a pit stop at the Mars Express and add a little duct tape.

  • Wow, dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Civil_Disobedient ( 261825 )
    Lets just hope segment 10 wasn't eaten by the Martians!

    I've read a lot of dumb things on /., but I think this may win the prize.

    For today, at least.

  • Boom Erection (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seek medical attention if your boom erection lasts longer than 4 hours.
  • How do they know there is a problem in segment 10? Telescope? Are there active components inside the antenna boom?

    I know, this isn't a forum for serious discussion.
  • Can we call it a boombox?

  • Bash NASA (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Come-on Slashdoters, you're not doing your jobs: I haven't seen one post trashing NASA about this. Every time there is an item about a failure in space, there is a flood of anti-NASA postings. You know "if it weren't for NASA we would now have a Disneyland on the Sun, and it would cost $2.45 to go there round trip for fun on Friday and I would be going to the Crab Nebula for magnetic surfing on spring break."

    Where are all those comments that show that the average Shashdot reader is just plain smater then

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