Mars Rover Curiosity

[hitchcockgreen]

Set to launch on Saturday.... has an interesting deployment protocol...

http://www.space.com/12081-curiosity-ro ... nding.html

[Blunt Force Trauma]

Yea, I've saw that method a while back proposed. Certainly more risk of failure than the balloon encasement.

One thing interesting as to why something more than a parachute is needed is the atmosphere being 1% of earth, the chute needed to slow it sufficiently would have to be close to the size of a football field. Getting one or more to be stable at that size was deemed unreliable.

[hitchcockgreen]

The balloon method worked great. This does seem extra risky for a rover substantially bigger than Opportunity and Spirit.

[FirBirGir]

It seems like a better approach than the balloon landing but where is the fuel tank for that landing engines? That's a lot of fuel no visible tank.

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

I thought the balloons were ingenious. No rockets, no extra propulsion fuel...safe and cushioned landing.

[BZROM]

Seems they may need to keep from jostling the equipment around on this one...
Or; could be planning to land precisely on a set of coordinates...

[FirBirGir]

I thought the balloons were ingenious. No rockets, no extra propulsion fuel...safe and cushioned landing.

It was definitely a neat idea and simple. Anyone see The Red Planet movie? That movie shows what can go wrong with balloon landings and to BZROM's point, they may have needed to minimize the G forces on landing.

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

Yeah and it should also be noted that this is actually the heaviest thing they've ever tried to land on Mars.... 900kg.

So a balloon may not have worked at all.

[BZROM]

The rover's
descent & Exploring
the surface explained

[Dx.]

I can't see that site but are you talking about the sky crain?

[BZROM]

I can't see that site but are you talking about the sky crain?

Seems membership is required, try
:here

[Blunt Force Trauma]

Here's a 720P (make sure to choose it) looong version of the launch and landing. . .with no voice over, just awesome sound effects, so turn it up!

Most of the sound is very realistic, but some are in vacuum, however it's still looks and sounds great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw

[BZROM]

That's a great video. I recall seeing this sometime back.
Here is the pre-launch preperation video.

[BZROM]

Launch scheduled for today at 10:02 am
Watch it live; here

[FirBirGir]

Thanks for the link, I'm watching the final countdown now.

[BZROM]

Great beginning to most complicated mission & largest ever rover to go to Mars.

[BZROM]

Great beginning to most complicated mission & largest ever rover to go to Mars.

Live separation of Curiosity module to Mars.

[BZROM]

What i've learned;

Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking the elemental composition of rocks from a distance, and an X-ray diffraction instrument for definitive identification of minerals in powdered samples.

To haul and wield its science payload, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. Because of its one-ton mass, Curiosity is too heavy to employ airbags to cushion its landing as previous Mars rovers could. Part of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is a rocket-powered descent stage that will lower the rover on tethers as the rocket engines control the speed of descent.

The mission's landing site offers Curiosity access for driving to layers of the mountain inside Gale Crater. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

Precision landing maneuvers as the spacecraft flies through the Martian atmosphere before opening its parachute make Gale a safe target for the first time. This innovation shrinks the target area to less than one-fourth the size of earlier Mars landing targets. Without it, rough terrain at the edges of Curiosity's target would make the site unacceptably hazardous.

The innovations for landing a heavier spacecraft with greater precision are steps in technology development for human Mars missions. In addition, Curiosity carries an instrument for monitoring the natural radiation environment on Mars, important information for designing human Mars missions that protect astronauts' health.

[hitchcockgreen]

yeah this is what I was saying; heaviest payload ever delivered to Mars.

I can't wait to watch the live landing (obviously there won't be video footage, but I watched both Spirit and Oppy "land" back in the late 90s).

The delivery system is interesting and quite ingenious. Hope it goes off without any issues. mars has a long history of "eating" probes.

[FirBirGir]

When I watched the animation and saw that the first thing Curiosity did was pull out a laser and start firing, I thought that must be what all aliens do, right?