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New Curiosity Rover Landing Target May Save Months Travel to Prime Destination
coondoggie writes with an update on the Mars Science Laboratory. From the article: "Even as it hurtles towards an August 5 rendezvous with the red planet, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is being fine-tuned for a more precise landing and better operations once it reaches its destination. NASA today gave a status report for the MSL which was launched November 2011, and is still over 17.5 million kilometers away from Mars. Of major interest today was the fact NASA said it has narrowed landing target for the Mars rover, Curiosity letting it touch down closer to its ultimate destination for science operations, but also closer to the foot of a mountain slope that poses a landing hazard, the agency said."
From NASA: "The larger ellipse, 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) by 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) was already smaller than the landing target area for any previous Mars mission, due to this mission's techniques for improved landing precision. Continuing analysis after the Nov. 26, 2011, launch resulted in confidence in landing within an even smaller area [handy diagram], about 12 miles by 4 miles (20 by 7 kilometers). Using the smaller ellipse, the Mars Science Laboratory Project also moved the center of the target closer to the mountain, which holds geological layers that are the prime destination for the rover. ... 'We're trimming the distance we'll have to drive after landing by almost half,' said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager ... 'That could get us to the mountain months earlier.'"
...if you smash land into the damn thing.
Just remember to convert your units correctly!
Silence is a state of mime.
Because they completed an engineering analysis and determined that the reduced operational costs and increased science opportunities were balanced by the increased risk. Heck, for all you know there is no significant increase in the risk, and the old landing area selection was based on unnecessarily conservative estimates of the landing precision, so landing further away would be purely detrimental.
I was told that are plans to have the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image the landing. If anything goes wrong, this might provide the only knowledge of what failed and, if it works, the pictures should be pretty spectacular.
Presumably there is risk associated with distance travelled and time spent travelling too.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Even for a computer.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Actually, we have the world's largest economy and a populace that is by and large so affluent that *obesity* is our epidemic instead of starvation, and people think the sky is falling when they have to choose between netflix and starbucks. I'd rather see this money going to Mars science than to somebody's second SUV, and while it'd be nice to provide for the poor that money could more appropriately be taxed out of your home theater system or the like.
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Is a 6-wheeled rover really the most efficient shape for a land vehicle on rough terrain? I've seen videos of robots that look like snakes or caterpillars that can land in whatever direction, landing first as a ball before unwinding in the proper orientation.
Snakes have a problem with the amount of payload they can carry, and positioning that payload efficiently in the body.
Its not enough to get an instrument to the surface, it has to be deployed in an orientation where it can actually function, transmit data, gain access to rocks and surfaces, and be protected from sand and other foreign material.
You've seen videos of experimental toys, none of which survived the riggers of testing, or carried any significant payload, let alone a power plant, and a computer system capable of autonomous operation.
I think the six wheel lander offers the best mix of travel capability with payload capacity. I think I trust the guys who actually build and test these things over those who watch watch videos.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Step away from the TV.
Go out side.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Range, Doppler, and VLBI, all from Earth (and all done by the DSN). I don't believe that this mission is using Optical Navigation. No (other) Mars spacecraft participate directly in this, although of course the Mars ephemeris is dominated by data from them. It is an iterative process, where an initial trajectory is refined by course corrections and monitored more or less continuously, with the measurement tempo increasing as Mars entry gets near.
If you want to drill down into this, here is a good starting point focusing on Mars entry navigation.