APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul 31)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Jim Leff » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:07 pm

rstevenson wrote:I'm curious as to why they didn't use aerobraking for this mission. Yes, it can take a while, perhaps six months of repeated passes, but it would greatly slow the craft and result in, I assume, a gentler approach to landing.
I'd guess more fuel, more mission time, and a whole new set of potential downsides.

But, most importantly, don't get the misimpression that this is some flakey, haphazard, geez-I-hope-it-works plan. Yes, it's complex and highly unlikely to our eyes, but the engineers are quite confident. We're used to seeing complicated, novel mechanisms as being iffy. But bear in mind that this one's been engineered to an extreme degree. It ain't some kid shooting off bottle rockets!

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Rob's curiosity

Post by neufer » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:23 pm

rstevenson wrote:
I'm curious as to why they didn't use aerobraking for this mission. Yes, it can take a while, perhaps six months of repeated passes, but it would greatly slow the craft and result in, I assume, a gentler approach to landing.
MSL has no difficulty using a heat shield in order to drop from the atmospheric interface velocity of 5,800 m/s down to 470 m/s.

And it has no difficulty using a parachute in order to drop from 470 m/s down to a terminal velocity of 100 m/s.

The problem comes from having a parachute terminal velocity of 100 m/s.

(A more reasonable landing velocity of 1 m/s would require a parachute with a diameter of ~1 mile.)
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Vonskippy » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:52 pm

Makes me worried when the Nasa engineers can't sync a simple audio track to the video track on a 5 minute youtube video.

Lets hope they did a better job on the 7 minute landing sequence.

I wonder if Vegas has a betting pool for this landing?

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by geckzilla » Tue Jul 31, 2012 6:52 pm

Vonskippy wrote:Makes me worried when the Nasa engineers can't sync a simple audio track to the video track on a 5 minute youtube video.

Lets hope they did a better job on the 7 minute landing sequence.

I wonder if Vegas has a betting pool for this landing?
NASA engineers probably had nothing to do with editing the video. That's what video editors are for. Two separate jobs.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:09 pm

This is a very exciting video. I'm looking forward to the moment of relief and joy when we get the first signal from Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity transmitting from Gale Crater. Thanks and best wishes for a successful mission to the folks who have worked so hard to get this craft to Mars.
May all beings be happy, peaceful, and free.

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by ta152h0 » Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:20 pm

and enjoy an ice cold one on the evening of the 5th. And have a 5th ????????
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by minkfarms » Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:55 pm

OK kiddies, I remember when we couldn't even hit the moon. In my humble opinion, in this very new century, this feat will stand as one of the great technological achievements of space exploration. Its intricacies and payoff should thrill the public and that is so important for future robotic exploration.

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by NoelC » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:35 pm

Ambitious and impressive! Best of luck.

Did anyone else see/get this little joke?
HalfMil.jpg
As a software engineer I got a good laugh out of it. :D

-Noel
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by NoelC » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:43 pm

Vonskippy wrote:Makes me worried when the Nasa engineers can't sync a simple audio track to the video track on a 5 minute youtube video.

Lets hope they did a better job on the 7 minute landing sequence.

I wonder if Vegas has a betting pool for this landing?
There's nothing wrong with the audio/video sync. Chances are they use better computers than yours.

-Noel

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by saturno2 » Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:44 am

In this mission I worry about the weight of Curiosity Rover.
This robot is very " heavy"

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Beyond » Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:27 am

NoelC wrote:Ambitious and impressive! Best of luck.

Did anyone else see/get this little joke?
HalfMil.jpg
As a software engineer I got a good laugh out of it. :D

-Noel
At first, i thought there was something 'fishy' about this. It wouldn't play or anything. Then i noticed that the 'fishyness' is the joke :!: :lol2:
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by geckzilla » Wed Aug 01, 2012 4:18 am

NoelC wrote:There's nothing wrong with the audio/video sync. Chances are they use better computers than yours.

-Noel
The audio gets out of synch slightly for me at the end. I don't think it's my computer. But I also didn't notice it until Vonskippy pointed it out. It's like a tenth of a second off and gets worse towards the end.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by BMAONE23 » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:12 pm

Too bad they didn't include a Video Camera in the Sky Crane for footage of the actual landing

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by neufer » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:31 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
geckzilla wrote:
NoelC wrote:
There's nothing wrong with the audio/video sync. Chances are they use better computers than yours.
The audio gets out of synch slightly for me at the end. I don't think it's my computer.
It's like a tenth of a second off and gets worse towards the end.
By the time you start hearing the narrator he will either have stopped moving his lips or have been dead for at least 7 minutes.
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by ta152h0 » Wed Aug 01, 2012 6:07 pm

BM
I think they do have a descent camera
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by neufer » Wed Aug 01, 2012 6:51 pm

ta152h0 wrote:
I think they do have a descent camera
  • On Curiosity, itself, pointing down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSL_Curiosity wrote:
Image
<<MSL Mars Descent Imager (MARDI): During the descent to the Martian surface, MARDI will take color images at 1600×1200 pixels with a 1.3-millisecond exposure time starting at distances of about 3.7 km to near 5 meters from the ground and will take images at a rate of 5 frames per second for about 2 minutes. MARDI has a pixel scale of 1.5 meters at 2 km to 1.5 millimeters at 2 meters and has a 90-degree circular field of view. MARDI has 8 GB of internal buffer memory which is capable of storing over 4,000 raw images. MARDI imaging will allow the mapping of surrounding terrain and the location of landing. JunoCam, built for the Juno spacecraft, is based on MARDI.>>
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Bix Dugan » Thu Aug 02, 2012 1:09 am

Boy, this is complicated. Why not just safely splash down in one of the Canals? Put some spider legs on that probe and walk right out of the water.?

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Baaaab » Thu Aug 02, 2012 7:14 pm

What is 500,000 lines of COD3 ?

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by Case » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:45 pm

Baaaab wrote:What is 500,000 lines of COD3 ?
Q: Why is it useful to count the number of Lines Of Code (LoC) ?
A: The idea is that LoC should never be used to measure productivity, but more to do test coverage estimation and software deadline estimation.

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by neufer » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:15 am

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by neufer » Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:18 pm

Bix Dugan wrote:
Why not just safely splash down in one of the Canals?
. Maybe they will just do that.
http://www.universetoday.com/96617/curiositys-target-martian-destination/ wrote:
<<Where will the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover land? This annotated image of Mars by Efrain Morales shows where on Mars Curiosity will set down, if all goes well, at about 05:31 UTC on Aug. 6 (10:31 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5, 1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6). The landing site is 4.6 degrees south latitude, 137.4 degrees east longitude, near base of Aeolis Mons, also known as Mount Sharp, a layered mountain that rises 4.8 kilometers (3 miles), inside Gale Crater.>>
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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by johnlbee » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:27 am


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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by orin stepanek » Mon Aug 06, 2012 11:26 am

Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

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"All right, MR. O, I'm ready for my close-up,"

Post by neufer » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:35 pm

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/08060824-hirise-curiosity-parachute.html wrote:

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE has done it again!!
Posted By Emily Lakdawalla, 2012/08/06

<<In 2008, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped
an amazing photo of Phoenix descending
to the surface of Mars under its parachute.

Now it's repeated the feat, with Curiosity.

I think this image pretty much speaks for itself.
Absolutely stunning.>>
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-a-curiosity-close-up.html wrote:

Mars orbiter plans for a Curiosity close-up
by Eric Hand NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona, 05 Aug 2012

<<The MRO will slew into position and take a snap of Curiosity’s parachutes 60 seconds before landing, just before the rover is released from the back shell. It could even be possible to discern the heat shield on the ground. “We get one shot,” says Alfred McEwen, principal investigator of HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

This time, the chance of catching Curiosity on camera is only 60%, says McEwen. With Phoenix, there was about an 80% chance. The difference is because of the relative paths of the spacecraft. For the Phoenix landing, HiRISE’s long and narrow field of view was closely aligned with the path of the lander. For the Curiosity landing, the MRO will be much closer and looking almost directly down at Curiosity. But the paths are nearly perpendicular, which means that HiRISE’s field of view — a narrow north–south track about 6 kilometres wide on the ground — might not contain Curiosity, which will be barreling east along its 20-kilometre-long landing ellipse.

There is a silver lining, however. Not only will the MRO be closer, but Curiosity’s parachute is about twice the size of Phoenix’s. In the Phoenix snap, the parachutes were just 10 pixels across. McEwen says that Curiosity’s parachutes could cover 50 pixels, making for a black-and-white image as detailed as 35 centimetres per pixel. And McEwen estimates that there’s a 20% chance Curiosity will fall along the central swath of HiRISE’s field of view, where there are colour detectors. “If we’re really, really lucky we’ll catch it in our colour strip,” he says.

McEwen expects to get the data back to Earth by 1 a.m. Pacific daylight time on 6 August. His team will spend a frantic few hours trying to spot Curiosity and process the image before delivering it to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, by 3 a.m. So forget the fish-eyed, fuzzy thumbnails that Curiosity’s hazcams are supposed to return first. By the time of the 9-a.m. press briefing on Monday morning, the JPL could have a beautiful surprise waiting for the public: a memento (hopefully not mori) of the most complicated landing ever attempted in the Solar System.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes... (2012 Jul

Post by BMAONE23 » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:13 pm

Here is another MSL site to whet your curiosity for images from Gale Crater
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/