Homing In On Opportunity From Orbit 48
An anonymous reader writes "Finding its lander inside a 20-meter crater, NASA has further homed in its latest lander's location and a major science target for the Opportunity rover using high resolution orbital cameras from 400 km overhead. The lander's parachute even casted a shadow nearby this target [another 150 meter crater] during descent. Earlier, each bounce of the Spirit rover could be imaged, along with its backshell, heatshield and parachute debris. Even with dust and weathering, this method could find Pathfinder and Viking [barely], and a technical discussion with pictures is at Malin Space Systems, which designed the Mars Orbital Camera. Because of uncertainties in location, however, it would take 60 years to find the lost Mars Polar Lander, but they may look for Beagle if conditions aren't too dusty."
Re:Why is the US able to do these things so well? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's all thanks to the great GW Bush! Maybe we'll even find WMDs on the Moon!
Why, even Slashdot submitters are learning to talk like our Smirker-In-Chief:
The lander's parachute even casted a shadow nearby this target....
Or as Dubya might say, "Is our children learning?"
Re:Why is the US able to do these things so well? (Score:5, Funny)
I was thinking virtually the same thing. Only, I had correlated it with the filming of The Simple Life.
Re:Org. Press Release from Nasa (Score:4, Funny)
and if it where buggy, they'd at least have a patch within a couple of hours
They better hurry before Redhat pulls the plug on the version they're using!
(Boy I hope the mods are in good humor today.)
Re:*ohh* A Following Question/Thought (Score:3, Funny)
Speaking without knowing, however, I think NASA's work is pretty open to any 'friendly' country with a bonafide space program..
Space research has some overlap with military research, and noone wants a nation like North Korea to progress any faster militarily than absolutely neccessary.