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Spirit Rover Lands Successfully
So, as I write this, the latest word is: the Spirit rover has landed and NASA has received a signal indicating it landed right-side up (so it shouldn't have any problems in the unfolding process) and will shortly be retracting the protective airbags which kept it from splattering all over the countryside. Y'all can fill in later news in the comments below. There's a nice site with up-to-the-minute text updates.
Yahoo! We beat the Martian Defense Grid. Up yours Mars!
I have been waiting all week to say that!
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
BBC News Mars Rover Report.
Press conference here at 9:30pm PST, so in about 25 min.
Hopefully we'll have as good luck in a few weeks.
Beagle 2 still has a chance when it starts ping flooding on the 5th.
If we get good enough at these, I'd love to have a rover to drive all over just to find all the missing missions.
Windows has detected a new device, "Planet Mars". Please insert the disk marked "Windows CD-ROM" and press OK to continue.
Check out the live mission updates on Spaceflight Now:
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.html
I watched it on NASA TV, too. It was quite an exciting ride through entry and landing. We have the second rover landing to look forward to on January 24.
this is my sig
here
I want BOTH to work, dammit!
I can't figure out how the euros were unable to get there rover to work. its not rocket science.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
The Martian Information Minister reports that there was no successful landing and that Martian air defenses have engaged and shot down their second UFO in just 10 days.
He went on to say that their Defense Minister "Marvin" is working on a uber weapon known as the Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator that will vanquish the infadels in a single Earth shattering KABOOM!
-PizaZ
This would've been first post if it wasn't for the eight minute delay between Mars and Earth.
Check my site soon for hot, live and free cam shows and exclusive pics.
Love,
Spirit
Although the roughly 10 minutes was longer than anyone expected the signal to be gone, it wasn't all that unusual. When NASA's DSN locked back onto the signal, it was strong. It is then that NASA learned the lander landed right-side-up and the airbags were still inflated (which is very good news). Airbag deflation, petel opening, and the first survey of the landing site is up next. We might even have our first pictures within the next 12 hours or so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/2003/details.htm
I put my name and those of my family on a DVD which was attached by metallic LEGO blocks to one side of the lander module.
It's nice to know that a tiny part of me just achieved a small measure of immortality on another planet in our solar system.
I wonder if in my lifetime I'll get to take a trip there and visit it in person?
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Cool. The rover is powered by a PowerPC chip:
"The computer in each Mars Exploration Rover runs with a 32-bit Rad 6000 microprocessor, a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC chip used in some models of Macintosh computers, operating at a speed of 20 million instructions per second. Onboard memory includes 128 megabytes of random access memory, augmented by 256 megabytes of flash memory and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory, which allows the system to retain data even without power."
Like many non-US citizens I get sick of Americans thinking that their country is the best and that other countries are less important. But look at what has happened yet again: Where another country failed, the US has succeeded.
When I hear that the US has successfully landed a craft on Mars, I don't feel particularly surprised. I'd have been more surprised if the mission had failed. But when the Beagle mission (apparently) failed, my reaction was neutral, almost as if I had *expected* it to fail, and a large part of that was due to it being a non-US mission.
I guess my point is this: If you're one of the people, like me, who is sick of Americans thinking that their country is "all that", then this success should be another reminder that as far as the advancement of science and discovery is concerned, their pride may be less patriotic arrogance and more a statement of fact.
Oh and I'm not ass-kissing Americans, I'm just feeling a little angry that another country has thrown away another opportunity of doing something important, only for the US to step in and show us how it's done.
If you want to be the best then actually being the best might be a good place to start. This fundamentally competitive attitude is something that Americans seem to inherently understand and embrace, whereas in other countries it is often frowned upon as distasteful.
The hard part is the landing. If MER-B also survies, it would be nice if L-Mart can start a production line of this vehicle to be loaded with different instruments for different countries. While the price was 400 Million for each of these rovers, in a production line, I would expect the price to drop to 100 Million or less for the base model. Let UK, EU, India, Brasil, and Japan send up working systems with their instruments and their launchers (or with l-marts).
Personally, I am interested in seeing a bunch of these crawl all over mars with all sorts of different science packages.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Considering the huge Anti-US sentiment on this site, I thought this would be a good occasion to tweak that crowd a little.
Apparently by the moderation, they can dish it, but can't take it.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Well, having been in building 264 at JPL (the MER mission operations building) I must say it was an exciting experience... Everyone was waiting really tense, jumping once or twice at some of the annoucements that sounded bad at first... six minutes from landing to signal confirmation, the longest 6 in my life!
When we got the signal, it was truely spectacular, everyone so excited, clapping, standing and hugging each other with vigorous congradulations. I was fortunate enough to be able to congradulate some of the higher ups (PI Steve Squyres, whom I work for, and Science Manager John Callas).
On behalf of all of us on MER, I'd like to thank everyone that's supported this mission, especially those slashdotters that have vigorously defended the purpose and existance of mars. What we are doing is hard, but not impossible, and we will continue to try until we prevail.
Today we had what I hope was the first of many victories on mars. We should be getting the first image back in a few minutes from the next odyssey pass.
BTW, I'm not sure what the press releases said, but we were very fortunate that the lander landed base petal down, which should speed up deployment significantly as there is no need for the actuators to push against the weight of the rover.
As I said earlier tonight, tonight went so well that it was as if we won the lottery, and by that I mean not just us at JPL but everyone on earth that will benefit from the knowlege we acquire. Congradulations all!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
First off, congratulations to everyone at NASA and JPL! The landing went off like clockwork. You should be proud. I know I am.
But NASA TV... you blew it. Again.
Here you have this tremendous opportunity to involve Americans young and old with the space program, to get them excited and emotionally invested in space exploration, and what do you do? You show us video of the control room.... with the sound off. You let us in on what the Flight Director is saying, but you don't decode it for the average viewer so they know what it means. You make landing on another freaking planet more boring than most cable access shows. Take a bow.
You didn't even start your coverage until an hour before landing. If you had any vision, you could've made a whole day of it. You could've made it an event. Fuck Survivor, you've got the ultimate reality show! You should've had the whole nation tuned in. Instead they watched a repeat of MAD TV.
NASA TV, wake up! You should be kicking the Sci-Fi channel's ass. Really. I expect more from you in the future.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
This will not help dispel the "Macs are more expensive" myth...
There is an interesting and informative entry on the NASA site regarding how much data can be transmitted back and forth between Earth and the rover:
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/comm_data.html
If we assume best case scenario for the transmission potential stated there and assume the direct-to-Earth rate averages the midpoint between the stated 12000bps and 3500bps, the total daily data for a single Martian day, direct-to-Earth and orbiter relay potential combined, is on the order of 17MB. The total data for the entire mission is on the order of 1,550MB.
Of course, this has to include protocol overhead, error, and operating instructions, but it provides one quantitative, if not qualitative, answer to how much data can be retrieved by the mission. In this case, a bit more than 2 CDs worth.
All the same there's only one thing worse than a sore loser and that's an ungracious winner. There's really no need to go strutting and preening and engaging in dominance poses about it. It shows quite a bit more class to just win and then be decent about it. To me, this wasn't a victory for the United States, this is a victory for all of mankind! We would be foolish not to aknowlege that much of the technology used on this mission came from other countries (and the ideas for them). We may not always see eye to eye, and we may fight ourselves constantly but we are all in this together folks. I will tell you that no one I"ve met here was anything but sympathetic towards the Beagle guys, and we really hope they re-establish contact (though it seems unlikely). Thanks to everyone around that world that contributed to this tremendous success!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Spirit actually received a signal from beagle2. It was only one word: "MEDIC!"
Yes, NASA TV could have done better, but I admit that I enjoyed the campy, amateur-hour flavor.
I thought the commentators did a great job, but I found myself wanting more of a raw feed with a lot less explanation. When someone on the flight control loop reports that they've aquired a signal, I don't need someone to repeat that they've aquired a signal. I don't think that Joe Armchair needs it either.
I also found myself wishing they'd be quiet when something was happening. There was incredible drama in the room; some of the commentary got in the way of the story. When someone in the loop says something, the explainer should hush up so we can hear.
Still, great program. I sent the cats flying for cover with my hooting when I heard that they had a safe landing.
The density of the atmosphere of mars is only one percent as dense as our atmosphere on earth. Due to the thin atmosphere a parachute alone is not enough to slow the craft sufficiently for a safe landing. Spirit used a parachute then retro rockets fire just above the surface to practically stop the craft. The airbags inflate and take up the small drop that is left.
Got Code?
I'm not sure which is worse: getting your info from Michael Moore or getting it from Noam Chomsky. I find both of those prospects frightening.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I put my name and those of my family on a DVD which was attached to....one side of the lander module.
That was brilliant. Now you will get spam from Martians, such as: "Increase all of your penises by 300%! And make them greener too!"
Table-ized A.I.
As immortal as a DVD in a martian sand storm?
This is ridiculously low-quality, but here's a screenshot of RealPlayer's stream of NASA TV from a few minutes ago. I'll post more pictures if I get anything good, but probably the real, high-quality images will be online within the hour. The first image here is of one of the mission control computer screens showing the images downloaded, including one image of the rover itself.
In the Beagle-Spirit comparison, I think it is important to point out several things:
- Spirit (~$400 mil) has over six times the budget of the Beagle (~$60 mil)
- Spirit is built on the success of Pathfinder.
- This is the European Space Agency's *first* time out to mars, and they attempted a *landing*
- Our first two times out failed (Mariner 3 & 4), and our third was just a flyby for 71 photos. Of course, that was 1969.
- Pathfinder is more recent, cost ~$200 mil... but of course Beagle is not a rover.
- ESA never had a strong national space program similar to the US or USSR for budget reasons, as well as many other factors (natural resources, age and background of the nations it comprises, WW I & II)
Bottom line, a simple comparison is impossible. Even so, here is an attempt: US space program performs better due to being the greatest world power (at the cost of being one of the worlds most hated nations). Money and power are very good for making Martian rovers (and microchips, and wireless networks, and stealth bombers), but they are also good at building inflated self images.
My point? If you succeed, don't gloat, help others.. If you fail, try again.
We like the moon!
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.