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Mars Orbiter Launch Delayed
Mictian writes "NASA's newest Mars probe, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), was originally scheduled to be launched from Kennedy Space Center Wednesday morning atop an Atlas 5 rocket. However a potential problem with the Atlas' Redundant Rate Gyro Units (RRGUs), that are part of the vehicle's flight control system, detected at Lockheed Martin's factory has caused the engineers to make sure that the two RRGUs in MRO's rocket are working, thus delaying the launch at least until Thursday morning. There is a 1.5 hour launch window daily until the end of the month."
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, was on hand to address the jubilant masses:
During the question-and-answer session that followed, when asked by a citizen whether rumours were true that the device damaged was only a minor inconvinence to the sickening inhabitants of the evil blue planet, and that in all probability the craft would be launched within a day, K'Breel ordered the citizen's summary execution. The remainder of the question-and-answer session passed in a remarkably subdued manner.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
They are planning on testing the gyro unit today so they can get the launch off Thursday morning.
Oddly enough, the Atlas V acually uses Russian engines in the 1st stage. Ironic for a rocket that was originally an ICBM.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
The 1.5 hours is because of the optimum time for launching to Mars due to the earth's rotation right? Darn scientists! If they'd stuck to the flat earth model we'd not have to worry about all this launch window mumbo-jumbo.
It takes almost 5 seconds searching the term in the Wikipedia.
Launch window is a term used in aerospace to describe a time period in which a particular rocket must be launched. For trips into Earth orbit almost any time will do, but if the spacecraft intends to rendezvous with another (or a planet, or other point in space) the launch must be carefully timed so that the orbits overlap at some point in the future. If the rocket does not launch in the "window", it has to wait for the next one before it can be launched.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Yeah, and if it DOESN'T get to outer space on the right course, then your pretty little orbiter is nothing more than a multimillion-dollar piece of useless space junk.
So it's important that your rocket goes in the right direction. This is actually very hard to do. A rocket is inherently unstable, as the thrust isn't ever perfectly aligned with the center of mass, and any errors in position tend to magnify themselves.
Ever blown up a balloon and released it? Notice how it flew every which way like crazy? Mostly NOT toward Mars?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
-1, Redundant.
Love the Third Amendment?
This mission will carry the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRise), which is "the largest camera ever sent out of Earth's orbit and will deliver the highest resolution images of Mars yet" according to an article that adds "The camera utilizes a series of mirrors and lenses that project the image onto a cluster of CCDs rendering images with a resolution up to 20,000 pixels by 40,000 lines, an image so large that it would take 1,200 typical computer screens to fully display. The camera's high resolution will enable the identification of objects as small as a coffee table while the camera orbits 300 kilometers above the planet's surface."
Back in January 2004, there was an interesting article at Space.com about the high quality of the 1-megapixel camera used by the Spirit rover; I assume this is manufactured to similar quality control standards (although by a different team), but the article doesn't specify and the cameras are not manufactured by the same groups. The Spirit PANCAM has two CCDs whereas this has at least 14 (28?).