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NEAR to Fly Once More
david.given writes "Yes, those loons at APL just will not leave the spacecraft in peace. The latest plans are to attempt to fire the thrusters again on Feb 14, 1900UTC (1400EST) and lift off the surface of EROS. If the thrusters work, and the trajectory is correct, and the camera is undamaged, and the communications system holds up, they reckon that they should get some more pictures from about 400m up. What's next? They're going to bring it home?"
But if you think this was great, just wait till you see what other missions JHUAPL has in store.
A number of these are excellent examples of the great, focussed science experiments that can be done under the faster-better-cheaper paradigm, and they're even competing for slots in the slightly more expensive Mid-Explorer program.
*It should be noted in fairness that NEAR itself had a glitch; in December 1998 they failed to make their planned orbit insertion, and had to circle the sun 14 months before another approach could be made. (At that time I'm sure many /. posters were blaming NASA for yet another failure! Indeed the faster-better-cheaper policy was being severely criticized.)
Dan
The latest plans are to attempt to fire the thrusters again on Feb 14..
Hey those are my plans too tomorrow if you know what I mean...
CNN is reporting that the project has been given another week of deep space network time to continue getting readings observations.
a nd ing.02/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/02/13/near.l
Yeah, there's some comment in the Linux TCP stack along the lines of
/* delay timeout mandated by TCP spec, we'll have to use something else to talk to the University of Mars. */
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
A few quick articles from
The New Scientist
USA Today
An interview with Vince Cerf
I'm not sure what has been done lately if anyone has some more recent links let us know.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
What's next?
I'll tell you what's next. They'll make their final log entries, clean the crud out of their desks, and get ready for the next assignment. Why? Their funding runs out tomorrow at midnight. It's a shame.
Heard on CNN:
The gravity is so weak that a 160 lb astronaut would "weigh" only about one ounce.
Given this, I was amazed that a 5 mph crash wasn't just a complete bounce. They're running out of fuel on the NEAR, so I don't know what their next choice will be.
Can they get it inserted into a stable orbit around the rock again?
Can they escape the gravity of the rock entirely?
Can they skitter across the landscape, trying for more landing sites and near-ground imaging?
Interesting thoughts on what to do with a now-disposable craft.
[
No! They're going to let it land again. They just want to get a few more pictures with the resources remaining. The probe itself might be solar powered, but the thrusters aren't.
By the way, does anybody else think the "official diagram" looks like legos?
"well thats it boys we have photed the entire rock what do we do now?"
SPACE HACKER1: lets try and land it!
SPACE HACKER2: COOL the next day
SPACE HACKER1: well that was fun whats next?"
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
We need to leave it there!!! How else will we know when Eros is about to hit Earth ??? It could kill your children!!!
"TONIGHT ON FOX.."
end communication
Budget cuts have often come with the simple reasoning that not enough comes out of the space program and individual missions rarely bring in value to exceed their cost.
The NEAR mission has been a total success beyond anyone's wildest dreams. They even recovered from almost certain tragedy when a mis-fire forced them a year off course. It has proven that sometimes the value of the mission does exceed the cost.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Does anyone know what OS their software is running on?
Vxworks, reportedly. It is a real-time OS.
From the NEAR FAQ
31. What kind of computer is on NEAR Shoemaker?
The computer is a 16-bit machine called a 1750A. Based on a military standard that is about 10 years old, it runs at 12 MHz and has 256 KB of storage. This is equivalent to the PCs produced in the mid-1980s.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
When this team gets finished with little NEAR, they need to be put in charge of a Mars Landing project.
Were Eros not moving relative Earth, were Eros not at a different distance from the Sun than Earth, were spacetime flat between Eros and Earth, then yes, all it would take would be a small amount of fuel to get from one to the other.
However:
You have to put in a substantial change in velocity (delta-v) to get from Eros to Earth with any hope of not becoming a crispy critter in a meteoric reentry. You have to change your potential energy from the Sun's gravitational field. You have to make the transit so that you end up relatively motionless to the Earth at the time when you are relatively close to the Earth.
So, it takes a LOT of fuel to get there. If you take enough fuel to get BACK, you have to take even more fuel to get THERE, because you have to move the fuel to get back. Then you need even more fuel to haul the fuel to haul the fuel, and then some fuel to haul the fuel to haul the fuel to haul the fuel....
www.eFax.com are spammers
Everyone knows that asteroids are the main source of killer bacteria that will hunt the human race and turn us into mutants. I don't want to become a mutant. Unless I get superpowers like the X-men that is. Then it would be cool and I welcome all those killer bacteria. But only if I get superpowers!
This type of tomfoolery is exactly why the government should be completely in control of space exploration.
If NASA had handled this like they did on Mars, that ship would have STAYED crashed.
From the NEAR page and mirrors "Spacecraft not to be relaunched from Eros The NEAR mission operations team disabled a redundant engine firing today that would have been activated if it became necessary to adjust the spacecraft's orientation in order to receive telemetry from the ground. But because NEAR Shoemaker landed with a favorable orientation, and telemetry has already been received, it is no longer necessary to move the spacecraft from its resting-place on the surface of Eros." http://near-mirror.boulder.swri.edu/news/flash/01f eb13_2.html
I don't know if this was posted before, but I assume that the pictures they take when this lifts off will look much the same as the ones that were taken on the landing as can be seen in this link: Landing Photos
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
When NASA try to land something, it crashes. When they try to crash it, it lands safely and can even take off again.
There's a pattern here. Can you see what it is yet?
If it's been this easy, why haven't they just sent a rover out that can return asteroid samples? I mean, if they can set a craft down that wasn't even supposed to land, how much harder is it to make one that is?
It looks easy because it worked. There's a lot of things in space exploration that seem like they should be easy, but don't work out that way. If it had crashed (a good probability) nobody would have thought it was easy.
A big part in the decision to land was that the probe had already completed it's mission objectives with room to spare, and wasn't going to do much good just staying in orbit. They might as well take some chances and see how it works out. They had nothing to lose and plenty to gain by trying.
OTOH, sending a probe with the explicit mission to land would be another matter entirely. Now the success or failure of the mission rides on doing something that's never been attempted before. The landing is no longer a free extra, it's an expensive design goal. It would have been a lot more expensive to purposly design the probe for a landing.
There's also the P.R. angle. Every time A NASA mission misses an objective, they take crap from all sides, even if it was a minor secondary objective (especially if that objective had a lot of media appeal). OTOH, if a mission accomplishes all of it's objectives plus a few that nobody even thought of before launch, they get much needed good press.
Of course, landing and takeoff from the asteroid is only half the battle. There's the issue of having enough fuel to return to earth orbit for pickup. Carrying that fuel would have added a lot to the mission cost, and made the landing more difficult (greater mass = more momentum = harder landing).
Hopping NEAR around on EROS a few times will bring valuable real world experiance that will eventually improve the odds for a successful planned land, sample, and return mission.
Scientists in a final attempt to squeeze every dollar out the NEAR project are going to launch the tiny spacecraft into the Sun. The NEAR has already provided facinating data by landing on an astroid, by crashing into a moon crator, by dipping into the rings of Saturn, by plumitting into the deep oceans and being swallowed by a giant squid, and most recently by being used as a target during the latest anti-ballistic missle tests. Go little buddy! go!
Someone you trust is one of us.
Let's re-read this sentence a few times, shall we? I rest my case.
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Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
"OW! Great Vrebzjneb, what the photon was THAT?"
"It sounded like something crashing into the surface. Zarbonn, I thought you said you'd fixed the problem!"
"I did, I did! Just let me go take a look...."
time passes
"...Aw, geez."
"Well, what was it?"
It's that stupid shiny box with wings. It crashed *again*, this time on the other side of the asteroid."
"What!? You mean they sent a second one?"
"No, no, it's the same one. It lifted off and crashed down again."
"How did it do that? I thought you said you'd broken all the electronic bits off!"
I said I'd broken the camera off so it couldn't see us. I didn't think it'd be able to lift off again after being beat up that bad in the first crash, so I left it alone. I figured the garbagemen would pick it up next Wurblesday anyhow, so I left it alone."
"Well, that's just great. Now I'm going to have to help you pick it up and carry it all the way to the other side of the rock so that they *do* pick it up."
"No, just relax, I'll give Zarkkel a call tomorrow afternoon and have him bring his tow rocket. He owes me a favor anyways."
"Well, go up and break all the rest of the bits off so that it doesn't go off a third time. The last thing we need is to have that thing crashing through our ceiling like those poor Martians did just last cycle."
"Already done. By the way, I thought I could swipe those solar cells and hook them up to the transmitter next weekend. If they provide enough extra power, we should be able to pick up the pay-per-view movie channel they're broadcasting from Titan."
"Great! Say, you don't think that shiny transmitter box could have come from Earth, do you?"
"I doubt it. After we buzzed their last box and made it crash into Mars instead of orbiting it, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson."
"You'd think. 'Intelligent life' my berizzekl."