Another Mars landing

[Venture]

Who knew we sent another rover to Mars?

http://getcurious.com/

Very nifty landing mechanism this time. I hope it works.

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation

 

[snuffcityrider]

Wow, amazing if they pull this off.

 

[cosmic]

It would be a off-road paradise...


©

 

[Don in Lodi]

Did'ja see the Rover zapping gophers!? How cool is that?

 

[Dingo]

Wow, amazing if they pull this off.

Not amazing - lucky.

The dick-wad engineer who put this idea together failed the KISS class ... http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2012/08/03/anxiety_over_rovers_hollywood_style_mars_landing/

 

[Checkswrecks]

Not amazing - lucky.

The dick-wad engineer who put this idea together failed the KISS class ... http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2012/08/03/anxiety_over_rovers_hollywood_style_mars_landing/

And you would have done it . . . . .




How?

 

[Dingo]

And you would have done it . . . . .




How?

Straight descent ... lower the number of possible failure points.

 

[Don in Lodi]

I thought the bouncing ball idea worked real well... Yes, this new set up has way too much that can go wrong, IMHO.

 

[markjenn]

The airbag approach is far from KISS - it also requires decel thrusters as well and has the difficult issues associated with getting the airbags out of the way without knowing what attitude the vehicle is going to be in. And you simply can't land a payload as large as the one being done this Sunday with this approach - it is totally infeasible.

I don't know whether it will work or not, but I do know that lots and lots of approaches were looked at from a lot of different angles, including reliability. I think the engineers might know a tad more about it than we do. I'll go with their analysis and judgments about what will work the best.

- Mark

 

[Don in Lodi]

LOL, one way or t'other, we'll know in eight months or so.

 

[markjenn]

LOL, one way or t'other, we'll know in eight months or so.

The landing is around midnight this coming Sun Aug 6th.

- Mark

 

[Don in Lodi]

Awesome. I hadn't even heard about the launch. I thought this Sunday was the launch, not the landing. I wonder if the NASA channel will cover it at all...

 

[markjenn]

Awesome. I hadn't even heard about the launch. I thought this Sunday was the launch, not the landing. I wonder if the NASA channel will cover it at all...

Yes, they're doing a bunch of updates and continuous coverage during the landing. Whether my local cable provider (Comcast) will actually show it live is another matter - they multiplex Nasa TV with local university programming and the landing is at a time that they typically don't show Nasa TV. But regardless, you can always get it over the net.

- Mark

 

[dcstrom]

Straight descent ... lower the number of possible failure points.

That was my first thought too - so many points of failure.

My second thought was that they must have looked at (and discounted for one reason or another) a million possible configurations and decided this one is the most likely to work at this time, with the resources they have (ie a better lander might need a bigger payload, for example) But even they are not sure. Poor bastards will be on tenterhooks tomorrow night, that's for sure. I'll be watching.

 

[Don in Lodi]

That was my first thought too - so many points of failure.

My second thought was that they must have looked at (and discounted for one reason or another) a million possible configurations and decided this one is the most likely to work at this time, with the resources they have (ie a better lander might need a bigger payload, for example) But even they are not sure. Poor bastards will be on tenterhooks tomorrow night, that's for sure. I'll be watching.

Naw, they just thought it looked cool. ::26::

 

[MidlifeMotor]

They should have put K60's on it.

 

[Don in Lodi]

Touch Down!! ::006::

 

[GrahamD]

Congratulations everyone. ::012::

Reminds me of the first S10 arrivals in your land.

 

[spklbuk]

Touch Down!! ::006::

Pics from the Red Planet

 

[hANNAbONE]

...we didn't go...