Slashdot Mirror
Mars Rover Curiosity Sealed Up For Launch
astroengine writes "On Oct. 5, less than two months before it will be launched, Mars Science Laboratory 'Curiosity' was sealed between its heat shield and back shell at Kennedy Space Center's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. The next time the one-ton rover sees daylight will be on Aug. 6, 2012, as the heat shield separates after successful entry through the Martian atmosphere, shortly before Curiosity touches down inside Gale Crater."
Have gnu, will travel.
"Where's my keys?"
I believed it was one by a student (elementary?) who submitted it in a contest!
On the downside, it is a little to "NASA-Like". (Though I suppose that was a "plus" in NASA's book).
These rovers are the coolest thing NASA has done in a long time.
I feel weird posting without making a snide remark.
And the things you will discover. I'm so psyched about the RTG on this thing. Certainly years, and hopefully decades of work to be done.
So do the half owners of the thing get to play half time with it too?
You can't handle the truth.
Interesting name.
Would love to have that on my business card...
as in Curiosity killed the cat.
NASA needs to do a manned mission to Mars to gain credibility. I can think of a few people I'd volunteer to seal up in there with the rover.
Curiosity's official name is the Mars Science Laboratory. This thing is massive, like really massive. Instead of a dinky little probe like Sojourner or the slightly larger Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Curiosity is about the size of an SUV. This will be the largest rover ever sent to another planet by an order of magnitude. It will be able to do all sorts of interesting geological experiments. It doesn't have that much direct life searches, which is unfortunate because the original life searches on the Viking probes was so inconclusive (most of the tests were positive but no organic molecules were found. There's been some suggestion that certain chlorine compounds in the soil could have destroyed the organics when heating).
There's a very good animation of the plan for Curiosity landiing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw. The whole process is complicated, involving aero breaking, then rocket breaking and while the rockets hover the whole probe over the ground, the rover is slowly lowered onto the surface. There are unfortunately a fair number of points of failure for this. If it does work though this will be a triumph of modern engineering and give us a lot more knowledge about Mars.
Next time the one-ton rover sees daylight will likely be on Aug. 6, 2012 ....
Imprecise ....
I noticed the wheels are covered with foil and the retro-thrusters look like they have giant rubber stoppers in them. Does anyone know the purpose of these? I am assuming the stopper things would be launched out when they're fired but how does the foil come off the wheels once at Mars? (or is that just a protective covering for until the thing is fully loaded and ready to be launched into space?)
Or it could be when the heat shield shatters upon high-velocity impact with the Martian surface.
How pedestrian. Send one to Titan!
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
..that the lander is programmed with the same units as the calculations this time...
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, spoke thus:
When a junior translator suggested that an examination of the storage compartments of its mating partner was a logical impossibility for an invader-symbiote participating in the communications nexus known as "Slashdot", K'Breel had the translator's gelsacs surgically removed, placed into a planetary protection environmental chamber, where they were alternately heated, warmed, cooled, and finally exposed to a broad spectrum of ionizing radiation, whereupon their leathery husks could safely be repurposed as portable storage accessories for the mating partners of worthy Council members.
Dr. Who will still find a way to get in and plant a video about aliens. And Captain Kirk will transport anyone that meddles with it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Curiosity is powered by an RTG. Every time we launch something with a nuclear power source a horde of demonstrators show up in an effort to stop the launch.
What does Mars sound like? It has an atmosphere, so there should be some sound... of air blowing across the plains or something... has it ever been recorded?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The landing procedure looks awesome, but extremely complicated. I understand a parachute landing won't work with something this heavy in Mars' thin atmosphere, nor will the bouncing ball thing that Spirit and Opportunity did, so it has to be a powered landing. But why the sky crane lowering apparatus, rather than strapping the rockets to the rover itself? Is this to avoid ground effect? Or to keep the rover relativity level in the case of wind (how forceful is Mars wind?)?
Not SUV sized, nor mini-cooper sized. It weighs less than a minicooper, but if you stand next to it, you'd say it's bigger: The comparison is more when it's all folded up in the backshell (within which a MiniCooper will fit). It's also sort of rectangular, and it has the 6 wheels sticking out. The top deck is about chest high on an adult, but then there's the pancam mast sticking up and antennas, and the radiators out the back, which are pretty big, too.
It is NOT an order of magnitude bigger (i.e. 10x) than previous rovers. In fact, most of the dimensions are almost exactly twice those of MER (wheel diameter, for instance). (I guess, this being /., order of magnitude could mean 2). Sojourner is 65 x 48 x 30 cm and weighs 10.5 kg. MER is about 2.3x1.6x1.5m fully deployed, and the main body is about half that. It masses 170kg MSL is about 3m long, 2.7 m wide and 2.2m high and masses 900kg (the actual EDL mass is substantially larger, OTO 1500kg, what with backshell, heatshield, skycrane, etc.)
the MiniCooper size comparison was a very early comparison, and really doesn't capture the size/shape. It's sort of like the Fox Terrier/Eohippus comparison.
"...after successful entry through the Martian atmosphere..."
This is NASA after all!!!
Rover, singular.
Which is annoying. One glitch on landing, a stuck wheel, bad comms, whatever, and the whole mission is a waste. This not only wastes the existing mission, but poisons the next mission.
Always make a backup.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
...of the coincidence between this story and Steve Job's death? I posit that Jobs is not dead (really, let me be the first) but in actuality is sealed up with MSL in stasis (an mPod I guess) in a bid to be the first human on Mars.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/