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Mars Space

ESA to Deploy Mars Express Radar 140

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-get-enough-of-that-new-mars-topic-icon dept.
fenimor writes "Mars Express was launched on 2 June 2003 and reached the planet on 25 December 2003. After eight months of intensive computer simulations and technical investigations the European Space Agency has given the green light for the MARSIS radar on board Mars Express spacecraft to be deployed during the first week of May. Assuming that this operation is successful, the radar will finally start the search for subsurface water reservoirs and studies of the Martian ionosphere."
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ESA to Deploy Mars Express Radar More

ESA to Deploy Mars Express Radar

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  • Antenna Boom (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teiresias ( 101481 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:06AM (#11606253)
    After eight months of intensive computer simulations and technical investigations

    if people are wondering why the decision took so long, besides commanding something on Mars, would be the loss or impairment of the antenna boom. Of course they have safeguards and workarounds but if that fails MARSIS is dead in the water. Good luck ESA.

    • Re:Antenna Boom (Score:5, Funny)

      by Adrilla ( 830520 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:08AM (#11606268) Homepage
      Of course they have safeguards and workarounds but if that fails MARSIS is dead in the water.
      It'd have to find water first.
    • intensive computer simulations and technical investigations

      I wonder did they simulate switching the damn communication channels on this time!

    • Re:Antenna Boom (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When this problem originally surfaced I heard a rumour (from a source at ESA mission control) that the real reason that NASA flagged a problem was to delay the antenna deployment so that Mars Express could better support the communications required for the operation of the two NASA Mars Rovers.

      Now I'm not sure if this was really the case, but it was a bit suspicious that the problem was found so late and at just the convenient time.
      • That's just a rumor. The boom problem was the real trouble. Aero did a very poor simulation of the dynamic envelope of the boom after deployment, and mission managers were concerned that it could contact the spacecraft and cause damage. I'm hoping that all goes well, as the SHARAD instrument on MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) is essentially the same instrument as MARSIS. I worked with SHARAD a bit, and the team was really banking on having solid data from MARSIS before SHARAD is to begin operation. T
    • > if people are wondering why the decision took so long

      My understanding was that the worst case scenario was the loss of Mars Express itself, not just the radar :-(

  • This is why we need a manned mission! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:09AM (#11606274) Homepage Journal
    Honestly, this is why we need a manned mission to Mars. All these countless robots and satellites wouldn't be necessary if we just sent several men with testing equipment to stay there for a few months. Imagine how much more can be accomplished! Combine all the cost of all the landers and satellites to Mars and compare it to a manned mission. I'm willing to bet the cost will be very similar and more can be done in a shorter amount of time.[tt]
    • Yeah, but men don't work to well when bits fall off either
    • But these missions cost pretty much nothing compared to manned mission.
      • And it's not worth the risk in the real world today (a world with laymen, politics, and public opinion). A failed robot mission results in disappointment and some slight irritation over wasted funding. A failed manned mission results in a massive PR backlash and calls from influential sources to kill the entire space program, robots and all.
    • Is this a one way trip you are planning ?

      • I know that many want a 2 way trip, but for the first one, it would be better to send a small group on a 1 way trip. We will need to send supplies every so often, but it would be possible for them to live on the planet and probably only need but several trips.

        As to volunteers, I would (but I am too old; 45). I am sure that there are others with the same willingness to go conqueror a frontier.

        • > As to volunteers, I would (but I am too old; 45).

          Well, it's always easy to say "i would do it" when you immediately give a reason for why you can't (unfortunately, but you really, *really* would).

          > I am sure that there are others with the same
          > willingness to go conqueror a frontier.

          Right! Just like the Japanese guys who wanted to conquer Pearl Harbor.

          C.M.Burns
    • It may be true for rover activity, but I seriously doubt that orbital surveys, radar and photographic, would be done better by manned missions (in orbit?!). The communication and weather satellites around Earth are not manned and they do their job, giving significant information about our planet, which we wouldn't have by just staying on the surface and which would be quite dull to manage from orbit.

      Even with an ambitious manned mission, the coverage of the planet would be "spotty". Automated studies give

    • Re:This is why we need a manned mission! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:18AM (#11606346)
      You have to be joking. Even on Earth, remote sensing usually precedes on-ground human exploration, because it allows people to focus on the most likely targets for what ever is of interest. At the very least, people get a map before they head out into the field, which is exactly what probes such as Mars Express are doing. You have to know where to go before embarking on an expensive trip. Half the value of having robots on the surface, such as the MER tag-team Spirit and Opportunity, is being able to put their local, very focussed observations into a broader, global context.

      It is also immensely cheaper and more efficient. Hell, the two MER robots have been on Mars for an entire year, and can keep going as long as they still receive solar energy at reasonable levels and nothing mechanical breaks. Humans are very high maintenance by comparison.

      Humans will get there eventually, but there is no point in going yet without good baseline information.

    • Re:This is why we need a manned mission! (Score:5, Informative)

      by yotto ( 590067 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:19AM (#11606353) Homepage
      I'm willing to bet the cost will be very similar...

      And you'd lose. Keeping people alive in space is EXPENSIVE. They need air, food, a place to poop, things to keep them occupied for months so they don't go nuts, exercise equipment...

      We can send a couple hundred (or less) kilogram probe to Mars on the most cost-efficient multiyear route. To send a couple hundred kilogram human, you'd need to send tons and tons of extra mass just to keep him alive, and you'd need to use a very cost-inefficient trajectory to get him there as quickly as possible, which means tons and tons of fuel.

      Then you gotta get them back.

      • Re:This is why we need a manned mission! (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Then you gotta get them back.

        Pfft, sentimental claptrap. Ever seen Space Cowboys? Lets see if any of the old timers wouldn't fancy a one way trip to Mars!
      • , a place to poop, You must mean the vent sticking out of the side of the craft.

        Why travel in space when you can crap into it?

      • If they're on the surface they already have everything they need: food, water, fuel, and shelter. Send this stuff first on an efficient, long trajectory, make sure it got down okay and is functioning, and then launch the astro/cosmo/taiko -nauts

        Of course, if they're in orbit (Like Mars Express), your argument holds up. I've got no problem with orbiting space probes, but humans still have the upper hand at terrestrial exploration.

        • This wasn't the point. Sure you could send it early but the origianl post said that sending humans for a few months would be about equal to sending a few probes. Even if you send the supplies early you still going to have to send it, which is where it cost money. Even if you use a really cost effective trajectory your still going to pay to get it off Earth.

          It's more expencive to have humans on or orbiting mars than to have a probe on or orbiting mars just because humans need more resources than a probe.
          • A human could do in a couple days what's taken each Mars rover over a year. A human would be able to negotiate more difficult terrain and find better samples than a rover. And a human would be able to change commands in the middle of the day.

            Until we have robots that are capable of the mobility and reasoning of humans, we'll have to send humans to do more than scratch the surface.

      • What are your numbers? Have you studied this in any detail? My numbers indicate its very doable, but that's based on declassified data.
        • If the data is declassified, can you share it with us or point us towards a page with it on?
          Otherwise you might just as well say 'my numbers are based on some random number I just rolled a dice and came up with'.
          • Well, the first set of data I submit is the ISS. So far its still up there. Some of the stuff that's public information has been around for 50 years. Its almost part of the human record.

            As for for getting materials into space, Mr. Burt R. has shown a method that works, is doable, and is a lot cheaper than the budget model used by NASA.

            Shuttle fuel tanks for mars-cargo-containers. Its common knowledge that one of the last procedures of the shuttle is to 'point' the external fuel tank back 'down'.

            Artif
      • Then you gotta get them back.

        Not necessarily. I have seen proposals for one way manned Mars missions. Send supplies ahead of time via the cost-efficient route, and then the people the quick way. Once they get there, they stay.

        I am certain that there would be a sufficient number of qualified volunteers to pull it off.

        • Then you gotta get them back.
          fI/Not necessarily. I have seen proposals for one way manned Mars missions. Send supplies ahead of time via the cost-efficient route, and then the people the quick way. Once they get there, they stay.

          I am certain that there would be a sufficient number of qualified volunteers to pull it off./fI

          What smokers and other terminally ill people? Sorry, I don't think one way missions, without massive qualifying conditions (planet in imminent danger), are EVER ethical.

      • I read somewhere that any manned mission costs around ten times as much as a robotic one for the same target. That means you could send ten robotic ones for the price of one human mission. Each probe maybe won't be as capable as the human mission, but they make up for that by redundancy. If you send ten robotic probes and half of them fail, you still have five successful probes. If half a human mission fails, you don't have a single mission left. And even if it doesn't fail, it can't go to ten different loc

      • What you need, then, is to start employing "geeks" as astronauts. Think about it.

        Need to keep a "geek" occupied for months on end? Give him a computer and a copy of half-life or something. Hell, better yet, get a couple coders who would just love to "get paid" to write software without interruption for the next 8 months?

        Just think: A development PC, a couple hundred cases of Mt. Dew, IRC, and maybe some hand lotion and that's all you'd need. Now, getting them out of the damn spacecraft once they hit
    • ok how much you want to bet?
      10 000$? ok you're on.

      besides, you'd need these as recon missions anyhow to know where to do that manned mission. that and you don't have any idea how friggin expensive it would be. for example, probes don't need foodstuff, they don't need oxygen. probes don't need to come back either, so they don't need to take the fuel th
    • It has proven difficult enough to keep people healthy and sane in Mir Space Station for any substantial period of time. Mir has proved that it is possible, but that's in a reletively large stationary object, not a spacecraft. The technology is certainly not with us for manned missions to Mars just yet and most of the lessons learned from Mir are with the Russians rather than NASA. I think NASA will need to do some long term studies of their own before committing anything other than chimps to the great beyon

      • Re:One Step At A Time I Think (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Submariners are a weird bunch, even the psychs think so :-) Maybe they can go to Mars.
      • But due to a myriad of other reasons, we will likely never use this technology any time soon:

        The ideas and technology was developed in the 1960's by Freeman Dyson, and was called "Project Orion". The project, I believe, was a sub-project of Project Plowshare - the "Atoms to Peace" initiative to look for peaceful uses of atomic energy beyond nuclear reactors. Orion was a true "heavy lift" vehicle - 200 tons to Mars from Earth's surface would have been EASY. Unfortunately, it had an ultimate downside of the f

        • I think you are being very loose in your terminology when you say we have the technology. What you have said is that we have a source of fuel which has the potential to get something very heavy an increadibly long distance and that it has gone through a degree of testing. But whether this technology would suffice for propulsion has yet to be determined, it hasn't even been tested out in the correct environment yet. What we certainly don't have is a background in sending anything living on a long journey a
          • Read up on Orion, then get back to me...

            If you knew about the history of Orion, you would know that the baseline size of the ship, as designed by Dyson, was going to be the diameter of the General Dynamics office, which was a large and round building in Southern California.

            Basically, what Orion promised was the ability to lift a large amount of mass into orbit and beyond - imagine being able to launch an office building stuffed with construction equipment, supplies and people and still having room left over

        • It might have worked in the 60's before society was hugely invested in MOS microchip technology. Nowadays, unless you're launching from the south pole, congratulations on breaking everything. For more information on the effect of nuclear blasts in space, look up the Starfish test shot [fas.org]. And even that one took the Hawiian power grid offline.
    • How much science is being done on the space station versus time spent just keeping the thing going?
      • Using your criteria, that would be all of it. Tracking time against an activity falls within the purview of the scientific method of observation. Sort of the reverse-Heisenberg pricinple of scientific accounting: you can know when you are not doing science, but not for how long you're not doing it, or you've just done it.
    • and send someone with dowsing rods - that'll find water every time.

    • I'm all for a manned mission, but the orbital probes do things that humans can't in an environment where humans are at a significant disadvantage.

      Would you use the space station for weather observations or communication systems? Of course not, you'd use a satellite. But you can't use a robot to do paleological or geological work, which is why we need to send people.

    • Imagine how much more can be accomplished! Combine all the cost of all the landers and satellites to Mars and compare it to a manned mission. I'm willing to bet the cost will be very similar and more can be done in a shorter amount of time.[tt]

      Keeping humans alive just for the trip to Mars is hugely expensive. And getting them back requires dozens of robotic missions just in non-scientific preparations, like generating fuel and water, so you still need the robotic technology.

      All in all, you can probably
    • Nah, why should humans go anywhere? It's just ridiculous. Just look at all the explorers who explored Earth during centuries, what did they accomplish? Also, if we want to go to the moon, or to Mars, why not send only robotic probes? I mean, why colonise other worlds? We've colonised new territory for millennia, apparently we're tired of it now. Let's stagnate and go stale, I say. Let's break that stupid tradition. Let's waste resources on weapons instead.

    • There's a simple solution to the budget problem, sell the rights to TV and turn the whole thing into a reality program:

      Coming Febuary 17th - Survivor XXV - Meridiani Plains. This time we're stranding 16 survivors on the Meridiani Plains of Mars with No food, No shelter, No water, No help of any kind.

  • Sub-surface radar? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Atlantis-Rising ( 857278 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:12AM (#11606296) Homepage
    What's the effectiveness of sub-surface RADAR? I can't imagine you can get a good picture of something under a pile of rock from orbit.
    • The same tech is used here to find hidden oil deposits.

    • Re:Sub-surface radar? (Score:5, Informative)

      by prgrmr ( 568806 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:27AM (#11606427) Journal
      At 186,000 MPS, it's the strength of the signal, not the distance traveled, that matters. In this context, the distances from orbit are insignificant, and the depth of rock only somewhat less so. It's the echo from the water under the rock that's being returned to the sattelite, not imaging data.

      Googling for info on earth orbiting radar platforms lead me to more info on earth orbiting radar sattelites that you'd ever need [skypoint.com]
      • It's the echo from the water under the rock that's being returned to the sattelite, not imaging data.

        More precisely, the return is reflected radar pulses and these can be used to make images.

    • Re:Sub-surface radar? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      basic radar technologie:

      larger waves penetrate deeper into solid things.

      Satelites have detected beds of rivers in the sahara wich are now covered by a dessert

      The larger the wave however also limits the size of objects to be found.

      • Satelites have detected beds of rivers in the sahara wich are now covered by a dessert


        Oddly enough that's true, freak whirlwinds can bury rivers under yogourt or ice cream. However fruit and jell-o are so-far not penetrable by satellite based radars.
        • Two men dying of thirst in a desert staggered over a sand dune and saw a large outdoor market spread in front of them.

          They dash down to the first stall and ask the vendor if he's got anything to drink. "Sorry," came the reply, "I have only these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings."

          They move to the next stall. Had he anything to drink? No sorry, all he had were these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sug
    • Do some Googling for "ground penetrating radar" or "subsurface radar". You'll be surprised at what can be seen, (lots of variables but items as small as 1/10 wavelength at depths ranging from one meter to several kilometers are currently possible).

    • Re:Sub-surface radar? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What's the effectiveness of sub-surface RADAR? I can't imagine you can get a good picture of something under a pile of rock from orbit.

      It depends a lot on the material you are trying to penetrate. Ice is easiest, so there should be useful data over the poles, then dry sands is next. Remember the space shuttle's sierra mission worked pretty well (but it was a much longer wavelength). They should be able to see through rock and gravel a little way, as long as it's dry or frozen. It's important to rememb

    • The rough rule for depth is the wavelength times ten. MARSIS should be able to see down a couple kilometers.

  • Delay explained (Score:5, Funny)

    by prgrmr ( 568806 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:15AM (#11606322) Journal
    From TFA:

    follows eight months of intensive computer simulations and technical investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

    It's good to know they took the time to work out all the conversions to and from metric.
    • To and from metric to WHAT exactly? These are scientists, aren't they?
    • I'm just wondering would it have been cheaper to test this before the mission was launched? The story says it was impossible to test deployment on the ground. I'm thinking that impossible means 'rather expensive'. Eight months of international studies sounds rather expensive, too.

      Perhaps we need more R&D in the field of "give them all the money they need to do it right while somehow keeping the money out of corrupt bureaucrat's pockets". That would be a worthwhile study with far ranging implication
      • The story says it was impossible to test deployment on the ground. I'm thinking that impossible means 'rather expensive'.

        It could very well have been impossible to test on the ground. After all, we have one thing here in abundance that isn't up there. Gravity. The arms are made to be deployed in ZeroG/freefall and on the earth we can't exactly test that.

    • Re:Delay explained (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsidd ( 6328 )
      It's good to know they took the time to work out all the conversions to and from metric.

      That was NASA. This is the ESA. That's E as in Europe. They already use metric -- in fact, it was they who invented metric, over 200 years ago.

  • Speeding Martians (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:17AM (#11606336)
    Those Martians better watch out. When radar is deployed, speeding tickets are soon to follow.
  • For a moment there, I misread the title as ESR to Deploy Mars Express Radar and I thought, what the heck is Eric Raymond doing now?!!

  • pic (Score:5, Informative)

    by essreenim ( 647659 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @10:36AM (#11606496)
    Here's a picture of the ^antenna^ [esa.int]

  • The first time I saw the headline I read it as "ESA to destroy Mars..."

    • We can't do that, the Martians would retaliate!

      Where's the Kaboom? There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!

  • They could have launched it to rendezvous with ISS, and then deploy everything (once it's in space, there's no more need for a nosecone), test the whole contraption and send it on its way.
    That way they could have done something if deployment had failed.
    • Because that would have required cross-funding of projects from two different space agencies, and we all know how well the bureaucrats grok that. Heck, this could have lead to the co-mingling of funds, and that would be horrible! How would they ever decide on who gets credit for what? You cannot forget what's really important about these projects, you know.
    • Why, because ESA still does not have the ability get anyone into space.
      They are reliant on Russia and the US for a ride.
      And at the moment with only 2 people on the ISS who is going to do the checkout and or repairs in LEO?
      For this to work someone needs to develop a cheaper, safer way to get off this rock.

    • I don't know what the spacecraft looked like, but I recall it carried Beagle 2 to Mars as well. Deployment of the radar booms was to take place after releasing Beagle 2. It could very well be that Beagle 2 prevented the tests you suggest, or at least would have made them very expensive. They could have designed the spacecraft to allow for mechanical deployment tests even with Beagle 2 in place, but then how would you know those test results would be relevant to the situation in Mars orbit?

      Anything can be t

    • A few negatives to that approach I can think of:

      1) More fuel/effort required overall - you have to get the spacecraft to LEO and dock with the ISS which requires circularizing the orbit. Then, you have to perform another burn to leave orbit and get onto an escape trajectory.

      2) After leaving LEO you still need to have some powerful acceleration and deceleration burns which would put stress on fragile components like these antennae - if you've seen the pics, they are long boom antennae, not the 'radar dish
  • What will the tinfoil hat crowd like Richard C. Hoagland say about MARSIS radar images, especially when MARSIS does the radar imaging of the Cydonia region of Mars, probably late this year?
    • I actually read his book about the "pyramids" on Mars and the face and how it connects to Egypt. Facinating the way he takes half truths and scattered fragments and turns them into a cohesive, if looney, theory. One thing that was true is that the Cairo is a corruption of the Arabic word for Mars.

  • I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @11:16AM (#11606886) Journal
    If they were unsure if they were going to use it, why did they build it and attach it to the spacecraft to begin with?

    • Re:I don't understand (Score:3, Informative)

      by gabe824 ( 772563 )
      From TFA:

      ESA's decision to deploy MARSIS follows eight months of intensive computer simulations and technical investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. These were to assess possible harmful boom configurations during deployment and to determine any effects on the spacecraft and its scientific instruments.
      The three radar booms of MARSIS were initially to have been deployed in April 2004, towards the end of the Mars Express instrument commissioning phase. They consist of a pair of 20-metre hollow cylind
  • The radar should get a massive return from the metallic parts of Beagle2 (assuming it hit Mars.)

    • They should send Spirit and/or Opportunity to find Beagle2 *and* Mars Polar Lander.

      (Okay, okay. Assuming a route to even get there can be found, they're slow, so they probably won't live long enough to get there; and in the case of MPL, there's probably not enough sublight that near the pole.)

    • Not likely. I doubt it has the resolution and even if it does, Beagle may even be too small (i.e. smaller than the wavelength of the radar) to be detectable. Though, I have no idea how big Beagle is.

  • The three radar booms of MARSIS were initially to have been deployed in April 2004, towards the end of the Mars Express instrument commissioning phase. They consist of a pair of 20-metre hollow cylinders, each 2.5 centimetres in diameter, and a 7-metre boom. No satisfactory ground test of deployment in flight conditions was possible, so that verification of the booms' performance had to rely on computer simulation. Just prior to their scheduled release, improved computer simulations carried out by the manuf
    • All they had to do was place the satellite in the ESA zero-G test chamber. Oh, nobody has a zero-G test chamber.
    • Why wasn't that discovered earlier?

      Moore's Law. At the time MEX was designed, the simulations that uncovered the problem would have been prohibitively expensive. I'd say the opposite: kudos to the engineers at the booms' manufacturer who kept improving and re-running their simulations long after their product was delivered, launched, and (presumably) paid for.
  • I'm curious how they are going to handle the data processing of the radar return data. Past spaceborne synthetic aperture radar systems have generated enormous amounts of data that had to be recorded or relayed to Earth for processing into usable images and data products. Earth-Mars communication links are usually slow.

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