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NASA Set To Launch Probe To Mercury
antispam_ben writes "CNN is reporting the upcoming Messenger mission to Mercury is set to launch August 2. The spacecraft uses a combination of technologies (insulation, Peltier devices, careful design and orbit, always keeping the shield side toward the Sun) to keep its electronics at room temperature."
I'd rather have them probe Mercury than Uranus.
...well, compared to the melting point of Tin anyway...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
I would hope they would make it come down to that temperature, I don't know of any kind of insulation that would actually do that.
Better hope Microsoft isn't watching, they may sue for copyright violation.
Nasa: But it isn't MS Messenger!!
Gates: I don't care, gimme mo' money beeyatch!@#
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Nasa's Messenger? I wonder if Trillian will cover it...
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Is room temperature an actual degree? I always thought it was just the temp of the envirnment that the time. If that's the case, room temp for the spacecraft is pretty hot no?
Uning metric or imperial measurments or some strange mix?
Yes. Because space belongs to America.
I know it's a pretty big accomplishment, but can't we have one spot in the solar system without our flag on it? Maybe? I mean, it's not like we could colonize Mercury. Could we maybe fly the thing into the sun?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Since aerogels have much higher thermal insulation values than practically any other medium except hard vacuum they are especially excellent insulation candidates in poor to moderate vacuum ranges.
And it rendered on, until the end of its days.
as long as its room temperature in there, why not toss a few people/monkeys/whatever in with it?
Whoa, Peltzer devices? Awesome. I'm not sure how it's going to help us in space, but who am I to say that putting a smokeless ashtray, a juicer and a weird swiss army thing with a toothbrush that shoots out toothpaste onto a space probe is wrong?
http://www.babysmasher.com
http://www.openingbands.com
Does "always keeping the shield side toward the Sun" count as technology?
Sorry if I'm skeptical about this stuff... not in the moon hoax sense, but in the building a base on the moon and sending people to Mars sense.
Is this a novelty or something? Why does it even need to be mentioned?
...developed by nVidia for the NV30 launch, but scaled back because they only need to protect Messenger from a class G star as opposed to a modern graphics card.
While most other planets have been well studied, Mercury has not even had half its surface mapped! Messenger has non-visual light detectors including a laser altimiter which will let it map the whole planet, counteracting its slow rate of rotation. I hope the launch goes well and look forward to the data return. Kudos to NASA for doing some good science on what is considered a less sexy target than some others which seem to hog all the research money.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
...to keep its electronics at room temperature.
But what about the other side? Lets ask Roosevelt E Roosevelt:
Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What's the weather like out there?
"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking."
Well, can you tell me what it feels like?
"Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! I saw... It's so damn hot, I saw little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?"
What do you think it's going to be like tonight?
"It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle."
Ahh, what a great movie.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
For more information, see ESA BepiColombo page.
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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M'Ger: It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.
P.S. Please send more info on carbon-based units infesting Earth.
"...the spacecraft must swing once past Earth, twice past Venus and thrice past Mercury before slowing down enough to slip into orbit around Mercury"
Her>That's the 2nd time I've seen Mercury! Stop and ask!
Him>I will not ask for directions! I know where we are now
Her>I have to pee! And you promised we'd get some Venutian shopping done!
*NOTE* - It is rather interesting that the craft must maneuver like this to get a stable orbit and not get crushed.
The use of "room temperature" in a technical discussion would only be considered by people with room temperature IQs.
I know thermal issues have always been central to spacecraft design, but this sounds like a nicely engineered approach to temperature control.
I'm reminded of the faulty heater on one of the Mars Rovers. Could such problems be avoided or at least mitigated by use of more passive thermal management (insulation, heat pipes, heat sinking/sourcing)?
I'm also reminded of the Russian probes to Venus which had uderstandably short lives due to both heat and pressure (possibly corrosive gases as well).
I'm firmly in the camp that promotes more unmanned probes, maximizing the power of money spent on advancing spacecraft technology and knowledge from expanded exploration rather than blowing it all on the dubious value of letting a person stand on Mars.
Can someone please tell me where I can buy this special insulation ... my damn electric bill is high as shit!
My Web Site - www.ocean-liners.com
Even though Mercury is 50 million miles from Earth at closest approach, Messenger will travel 5 billion miles to get there. It's technologically infeasible to fly straight to Mercury, a trip of a few months, and so the spacecraft must swing once past Earth, twice past Venus and thrice past Mercury before slowing down enough to slip into orbit around Mercury.
Can someone explain why such a convoluted and time consuming route is required?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Entec case fans, Swiftech water cooling with dual radiators, Thermaltake fanless PSU, PC Power bay coolers, the works! Lian-Li designed the case to the BTX standard, and the radiation-hardened 486 is overclocked to 100MHz! All they need now is the NASA case badge...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
[SNIP] Bachtell used X-Acto blades to cut the 3M Nextel fabric and then used an industrial sewing machine to stitch the off-white pieces together into an 8-by-9-foot quilt, using Teflon-coated fiberglass thread. It was a nasty job; the itchy, ceramic-fiber cloth sheds and is bad to inhale.
You see all these people working on these satellites wearing protective clothing, not to protect the people but to protect the equipment. If we have learned anything thing, it's to protect your lungs and eyes. Imagine breathing that fiberglass and some form of ceramic fibers. I guess it's not popular to wear a $30 respirator when dealing with these exotic substances. For you though; if you feel like wearing one then do it - your not a bigger man breathing fiberglass than not.
There will always be homeless and by and large we take of most of our mentally ill. I'd rather spend it on space exploration than pumping some pork into politician's buddies pockets...but then again, we'll have that for awhile too. We all benefit from space exploration. New technologies are discovered, invented, born, what have you.
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you'd think that it would be easier for him to come to us. Nevertheless, it's nice to see that we are taking the first step in establishing contact.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Nasa's in for a big surprise when the spacecraft gets there and they decide to fire up messenger.exe
But don't worry... the spacecraft hasn't crashed. It's simply hidden in the taskbar!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
we better thank our lucky star that the Sun is not about to be overclocked...
Proudly sponsored by MSN!
...for a probe of URANUS.
All that technology - what a waste. The cost too!
If they had sent it at night...
For problems, seek only the simplest solution, complexity brings with it more problems.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Forgive me if I'm incorrect but even a single orbit around the planet would burn up the satellite. The planet doesn't spin so there would be no way to see the hot side without burning up. The satellite would need to establish some sort of orbit around the planet just so it would stay in place but it seems to me the visit would be VERY short.
I like their cooling solution much better; high temperature superconductors and peltiers to move the heat to a central location, where the kinetic energy is used to power a communications laser.
Too bad our current superconducting technology is scaling more slowly the higher temperature it gets. What we're currently calling "high temperature" means room temp. We'll make it there eventually. But without a whole new technology (nanotech anyone?) we'll never make superconductors that remain super conducting at temperatures much higher than that.
But what about a laser powered by heat? Can it happen without having to reach the ionization temperature of the lasing medium? Anyone have any insight?
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
As far as technology goes I prefer checklists over careful design any day.
I've read analyses which say that the poles of Mercury have permanently shadowed areas which are close to sunlit zones (for power) and just might contain water ice. So yes, it may be possible for people to live there. (Getting on and off would be difficult due to the density; the kinetic energy energy of orbit is proportional to the density, so you couldn't use a LEM-equivalent lander despite the rough equivalence of the size.)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Correct. According to article II of the Outer Space treaty (signed by the USA): "Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
For those that care, here's the link for the NASA site on Messenger. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/i ndex.html
I know the future of exploration is in the private sector, but must NASA pander so obviously to its industrial sponsors? At least the craft's design is pretty cool... http://new-cars.com/concept/2003/mercury-messenger -concept-photos.html
Ceci n'est pas un post.
Well, you could do it if you wanted.
...isn't the 5 gigamile trip. It's the launch window. They have a 12 second launch window to either launch it or wait for the next 12 second window-- the next day, at the earliest. Because of the multiple fly-bys, the math gets a little complicated, and error tends to cascade towards failure.
;-)
Talk about performance anxiety!
Wife: OK Honey, I'm ready. You've got 12 seconds.
Enough for a high school boy, I imagine, but not us mighty slash dotters, right?
So, let's hope he doesn't screw this one up! Don't press the red button....whatever it does, don't press it!
- launch_0715.html
Here's an article with a bit more info than the quoted CNN story:
http://planetary.org/news/2004/messenger_ready-to
Clue in the Clueless??
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
...so this mission doesn't have to worry about providing power like the missions to the outer planets. There should be more solar power than they could possibly want. That's probably why the solar panels are 1/3 solar cells and 2/3 mirrors.
Of course, they have other problems that don't occur on outer planet missions like making sure your space craft doesn't melt.
That would be The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where I used to work. NEAR was the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, the spacecraft that landed on an asteroid (a year or two ago?). I know a number of the people from APL involved in the project. There's a pretty detailed article in our local paper (local to JHU/APL) that describes more of the background. And of course their Messenger website is informative too.
I mod down all the "free iPod"-sig losers.
I mean, I've never been to any of their rooms, but I have to imagine that getting something like ELEVEN TIMES the heat that Earth gets would tend to warm things up a bit...
A factor that I can't judge is that many aerogels are made of silica, which has a much lower melting point than ceramics like alumina; it may be that the available aerogels were not sufficiently heat-resistant to do the job.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Well, if your suggesting that we send the mentally-ill, drug-addicted, homeless terrorists to Mercury I'll let you know right now I'm AGAINST it! We've GOT to start standing up to you "if they ain't like us we gotta kick 'em out!" types ONCE and FOR ALL!!
The Venera landers were able to make it down to the surface, and IIRC one or two of them actually sent back pictures for a while. Their lifespans were very strictly limited by their insulation; as heat soaked in there was no way to pump it out again, and it did not take long before the electronics were too hot to function.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I'll bet that Newtonian physics was good enough, and GR corrections would have been down by the 5th decimal place or lower. It is barely possible to measure GR effects in the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, let alone in the delta-V from leaving your burned fuel lower in a gravity well.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I don't know if the ellipticity of Mercury's orbit is such that the apparent motion of the Sun can reverse, and I'm not about to go digging for all the numbers when I have paying work to do. Maybe you can either document it or refute it.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
naeem
to keep its electronics at room temperature."
rtta
-x
The Discovery channel hasn't been about science in a good 6 years. TLC has never had any scientific content, only pseudo-science. The reason is simple ... real science is boring and the progress is slow.
If you want realtime feed of the launch you can log on to the NASA channel @ http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
It's like pissing in the snow. It's a guy thing you know.
If I had the points today. Interesting idea about the polar route.
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
The hard part of the problem you were given was the continous burn since that makes a simple problem that can be solved explicitely into a numerical-methods problem that is pretty involved if you don't have a programmable calculator. I don't recall ever being given that question (it's pretty unrealistic too since, to date, there has only been one spacecraft that has used a continous-burn engine). Unless this was a take-home test (in which event kudos to you for solving such a difficult problem which a general Physics course usually wouldn't go that in depth) or your memory is a bit foggy--or you wasted your effort on such a trivial peturbance of its orbit.
I thought the casemods were why it glowed.
I've been trying to reproduce the prominences on my box, but I can only get any given case to do it once.
So who else is missing the big picture? I mean, if we can insulate an alloy against temperatures that extreme, why isn't my RAM running at 4ghz? huh?
For those lacking taste, the reference is to Good Morning, Vietnam
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
Don't forget Monster Garage, Monster House, Monster Car, Monster Bike, uh ... etc. This infotainment is all about entertaining the plebians, while pretending to inform every once in a while.
I also lement the direction the Discovery Channel, TLC, etc, have gone.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
This guy spent a lot of time optimizing these imgages, and offers a very cool site about the Soviet Venera program in general. Very cool stuff.
Aerobraking was used by Mars Global Surveyor (still in orbit but only needed aerobraking initially) but no other spacecraft has used it since. I assume their analysis of the technique has lead them back to using reentry rockets instead. I'm not saying they won't work but if they'd been the cat's meow on MGS then they'd have used them everywhere, like they've now gone with airbags on the Twin Rovers.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???