Simulation of the Mars Science Laboratory Sky Crane

An anonymous reader points us to Gizmodo for a fascinating video of NASA's Sky Crane. "When I read that the UFO-looking Mars Science Laboratory's aeroshell would use a floating crane — called Sky Crane by NASA — to softly land the rover on Mars, I couldn't believe it. Now, watching this hyper-realistic NASA simulation, I still can't believe how the whole thing works. I don't know about you, but the whole operation mesmerizes me to no end."

Comments

Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[jackb_guppy]

That is so complicated. The "beach ball" idea from the two current rovers was much better.

Maybe if the Sky Crane was a ballon system so it can float around Mars would make this better. But still way too complicated.

Re:Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on the project, and I understand all the reasons why we're doing it this way, but for what it's worth, I think it's as bat-shit insane as the rest of you. One thing no one can argue, though: it's incredibly cool.

Re:Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[LurkerXXX]

Or you need to send down a bunch of pieces which assemble themselves into a larger vehicle.

"Mars Mission. The Beginning of Megatron"

(queue theme music and intro credits...)

Re:Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

My first thought on why the space crane works is the rocket don't need to change speed. They can keep blasting out the same pressure slowing the craft with the right acceleration the crane has near zero vertical speed at the right height. From then it starts to accelerate upwards. I figure the crane cables are to give enough of a time window between slowly falling and slowly rising to cut the cables. Should massively reduce the control systems needed in the crane.

Re:Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[khallow]

My concern is that the crane is another failure mode. And it's not clear to me what value the crane adds to justify that risk. If the crane fails to deploy or it doesn't retract fast enough, then the vehicle is at the least immobilized, either with a heavy weight of the crane on top of it and/or damaged suspension system from hitting too hard.

Re:Cool Movie - but bad idea!

[Mr2cents]

Indeed, you are right about Spirit and Opportunity.. I almost forgot.

I am fairly confident that NASA has made the correct choice about the EDL method, but I really wonder if they are going to be ready in 2009. I haven't seen any photo's of the MSL construction, so I don't even know if they have already started building it or not. Or are they planning to do construction in just a few months? I know the science instruments are all (nearly) finished, but I hardly hear news about the rest of the hardware.

what I don't understand

[the_Bionic_lemming]

We seem to be able to get to mars better, the Russians do land landings better than us.

why not have them design and build the landing mechanism, and we just fly it there?

Re:turtle on its back

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The video showed the lander dropping straight down on the wheels without any side motion at all. This seems unlikely to me. The rover would be swinging like my dick on those cables unless there were some thrusters used to stop any swinging motion.

Other than that, it's a pretty neat idea, ESPECIALLY for a spacecraft which is not a rover. A rover can move out of the landing zone, but a stationary spacecraft cannot. It would be sitting on soil which has traces of hydrazine from the landing rockets - but this system would avoid that problem.