New Curiosity Rover Landing Target May Save Months Travel to Prime Destination 64
coondoggie writes with an update on the Mars Science Laboratory. From the article: "Even as it hurtles towards an August 5 rendezvous with the red planet, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is being fine-tuned for a more precise landing and better operations once it reaches its destination. NASA today gave a status report for the MSL which was launched November 2011, and is still over 17.5 million kilometers away from Mars. Of major interest today was the fact NASA said it has narrowed landing target for the Mars rover, Curiosity letting it touch down closer to its ultimate destination for science operations, but also closer to the foot of a mountain slope that poses a landing hazard, the agency said."
From NASA: "The larger ellipse, 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) by 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) was already smaller than the landing target area for any previous Mars mission, due to this mission's techniques for improved landing precision. Continuing analysis after the Nov. 26, 2011, launch resulted in confidence in landing within an even smaller area [handy diagram], about 12 miles by 4 miles (20 by 7 kilometers). Using the smaller ellipse, the Mars Science Laboratory Project also moved the center of the target closer to the mountain, which holds geological layers that are the prime destination for the rover. ... 'We're trimming the distance we'll have to drive after landing by almost half,' said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager ... 'That could get us to the mountain months earlier.'"
It will get you there way earlier.... (Score:5, Funny)
Just remember to convert your units correctly! [wikipedia.org]
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All calculations were done in dog-years, so they're really not saving that much time.
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...if you smash land into the damn thing.
Actually, that's what they're going to do! Seriously! They're not crashing the rover, but they're crashing the lander. The lander is a flying crane that will lower the rover by cable, fly off, and crash somewhere else on Mars.
I'm surprised that nobody's submitted a story I saw on Google News this morning about possible teflon contamination of samples, and how they plan on remediating it.
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Informative)
Because they completed an engineering analysis and determined that the reduced operational costs and increased science opportunities were balanced by the increased risk. Heck, for all you know there is no significant increase in the risk, and the old landing area selection was based on unnecessarily conservative estimates of the landing precision, so landing further away would be purely detrimental.
Re:Why?? Cost of change (Score:3)
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In this case they are directing the thing to crawl around in the least likely area to find life. There are lots of people who want to be able to say 'we looked and didn't find any current life' so they can proceed to endanger any life in the (more likely) places we never looked in, with impunity, for the value of the huge contracts, the dead heroes, and the retro approach: blast everything that goes to Mars from the surface of the Earth (such 20th century thinking!) , instead of learning to build
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Umm, you still have to blast an object from Earth to the moon, you might as well just continue onto Mars and save the hassle and expense.
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That's true, but it takes a long time and a lot of money to build up an infrastructure like this on the Moon or on orbit. Building living compartments, science labs, factories, rail guns on the Moon probably will take decades up to a hundred years or so, given that we start right now with this goal in mind.
So far no nation can put enough resources in to space exploration let alone space colonization. Hopefully it will change soon...
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Why risk it?
Its not like curiosity will be doing anything that is time sensitive. Who cares if you arrive at the site a few months early?
It definitely is not worth the risk of destroying the lander.
If the lander fails before it gets to the primary target, you have a partially or even mostly failed mission. MSL will be a long way from Earth, and many things can happen, so, yes, there is pressure to get there sooner.
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Curiosity is the biggest Hail Mary play since Cassini/Huygens. It is already going to take either divine intervention or help from the Martians to get that thing down right side up and in one piece. So this doesn't sound like too big a risk, considering everything else that they've had to account for.
Why not a crawler? (Score:2)
Is a 6-wheeled rover really the most efficient shape for a land vehicle on rough terrain? I've seen videos of robots that look like snakes or caterpillars that can land in whatever direction, landing first as a ball before unwinding in the proper orientation. The "caterpillar" will be modular, able to combine and recombine like a Japanese cartoon robot. Should a module be stuck, the mission operator will have the option of abandoning the module so the rest of the robot can proceed with rest of the misson.
A
Re:Why not a crawler? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a 6-wheeled rover really the most efficient shape for a land vehicle on rough terrain? I've seen videos of robots that look like snakes or caterpillars that can land in whatever direction, landing first as a ball before unwinding in the proper orientation.
Snakes have a problem with the amount of payload they can carry, and positioning that payload efficiently in the body.
Its not enough to get an instrument to the surface, it has to be deployed in an orientation where it can actually function, transmit data, gain access to rocks and surfaces, and be protected from sand and other foreign material.
You've seen videos of experimental toys, none of which survived the riggers of testing, or carried any significant payload, let alone a power plant, and a computer system capable of autonomous operation.
I think the six wheel lander offers the best mix of travel capability with payload capacity. I think I trust the guys who actually build and test these things over those who watch watch videos.
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link chosen from google image search becasue you can get an idea of scale from the people standing beside the rover. http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20013071-239.html [cnet.com]
Combining and recombining like a Japanese cartoon robot works best in cartoons. Sand and other realities would make it difficult to execute well on Mars
Late Breaking News: Medical Emergency! (Score:3)
A redacted version of the cyberweapon has been reproduced below for public analysis:
Upon reading the phrase "h3lp from the M@rtians", K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, immediately collapsed into fits of laughter and promptly laug
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A redacted version of the cyberweapon has been reproduced below for public analysis:
Upon reading the phrase "h3lp from the M@rtians", K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, immediately collapsed into fits of laughter and promptly laughed his gelsacs off.
I always knew someone was listening in my times of trouble.
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Curiosity is the biggest Hail Mary play since Cassini/Huygens. It is already going to take either divine intervention or help from the Martians to get that thing down right side up and in one piece.
Oh, I don't know, after several successful landers, each employing a different strategy for descent and landing, it seems well within the limits of what we know to be possible. Seems like lots of the landers employed tricky and new methods.
Looking at the new target area, compared to the old, it seems very little more risky that what was previously planned.
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Curiosity is the biggest Hail Mary play since Cassini/Huygens. It is already going to take either divine intervention or help from the Martians to get that thing down right side up and in one piece. So this doesn't sound like too big a risk, considering everything else that they've had to account for.
Cassini/Huygens presumably being helped by the Sirens of Titan.
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It is already going to take either divine intervention or help from the Martians to get that thing down right side up and in one piece.
Unless the Martians are felines, in which case they are probably doomed.
Re:Why?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ellipse? (Score:2)
Ellipse? I love how the world is really Gaussian.
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which might produce more of a circle.
Circular crater if they didn't do their math right.
Wait was that miles or kilometers? (Score:1)
Disappointed... (Score:3)
Imagine my disappointment upon learning that they are landing closer and so just ended up with a shorter drive. (end sarcasm)
In all seriousness, this rover has some amazing hardware that has the best chance yet of finding microbial life on Mars.
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...if it exists. Otherwise they all have the same chance: zero.
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"In all seriousness, this rover has some amazing hardware that has the best chance yet of finding microbial life on Mars."
It's funny that you should say that, because this rover still doesn't have a simple but critical instrument for detecting microbial life: a microscope powerful enough to see microbes.
Does NASA have an explanation for why none of the rovers have had a microscope at least powerful enough to see average-sized bacteria?
More to the point, why doesn't Curiosity have one? This rover is the hea
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I think I remember hearing that Congress wouldn't open the checkbook if NASA looked for 'Signs of Life'. They're allowed to look for 'Conditions That Might or Might Not Have Been Able to Support Life in the Distant Past". Something about ultra-conservative Christians, I think.
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They're looking for evidence of life in Mars' past; carbon and such. It's doubtful (but possible) there's any there now. It would take an ultra-extreme extremophile to live on that little air or water. And with a microscope, how do you know if it's a cell or just something that looks like a cell? The rover will be doing chemistry.
I'd bet the chances of life on one of the gas giants' moons would be more likely, if there's anough tidal heating for liquid water.
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That is true, but advances in how accurately we can land is very important for the possibility of a multi-landing mission like for example a Mars base almost certainly will be. It would not do very well to have your cargo/robots/crew/resupply mission impact on your base, or to have it land far, far away. Of course it's possible the micro-navigation - avoiding a small base in the landing area is better than the macro-navigation - hitting the landing area but the more controlled the better.
Sky Crane! (Score:2)
Re:Sky Crane! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was told that are plans to have the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image the landing. If anything goes wrong, this might provide the only knowledge of what failed and, if it works, the pictures should be pretty spectacular.
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And if it fails, the picture should be even MORE spectacular!
In all seriousness, I wish the MSL team the best. That is an amazing robot they're sending.
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They'll upload 720p video from MARDI (descent imager) if the landing is successful.
Re:And still. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Will Opportunity be in range to take pics? (Score:1)
Will Opportunity be in range to take pics of the decent through the atmosphere? Cuz pics or it doesn't count...
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No, but MRO should be.
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Techniques for guiding a landing on Mars? (Score:3)
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They do have some satellites in orbit, and a couple on the ground that they can still talk to, but I doubt they are relying on these for guidance. Certainly there is no fleet of GPS satellites circling the planet (although if we keep sending landers, that might not be a bad idea).
I think they rely on radar and optical maps produced by predecessors such as Mars Global Surveyor, (no longer working) and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to build camera and radar maps that they can use to set up landing approach
Re:Techniques for guiding a landing on Mars? (Score:4, Informative)
Range, Doppler, and VLBI, all from Earth (and all done by the DSN). I don't believe that this mission is using Optical Navigation. No (other) Mars spacecraft participate directly in this, although of course the Mars ephemeris is dominated by data from them. It is an iterative process, where an initial trajectory is refined by course corrections and monitored more or less continuously, with the measurement tempo increasing as Mars entry gets near.
If you want to drill down into this, here [gatech.edu] is a good starting point focusing on Mars entry navigation.
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And, if you want to know how we know where Mars is to within 10's of meters in real time, read this [nasa.gov].
That's impossible (Score:4, Funny)
Even for a computer.
Re:conspiracy theory (Score:5, Funny)
Step away from the TV.
Go out side.
Please Wait... (Score:3)
[Recalculating...]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS2Ba9gTPOo [youtube.com]
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just you. we don't drive, and when we do we know where we're going. ... i thought it was a Garmin thing, anyway.
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Oh, and get off my yard!
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Me too! I find navigating by GPS is an inversion of the ideal human / machine relationship, where the person does the creative thinking and the machine does all the boring labor. Turn-by-turn GPS strips away all the fun planning and exploring from driving, and leaves you with only the mindlessly mechanical task of pressing the gas and turning the wheel when prompted.
Turn off the GPS... fight the machine!