The Curiosity On Mars Thread.

Rubecula

:pac: :pac:

shedweller

Rubecula wrote: »

Any updates on this?

None that i know of right now. 12 to 13 million km to go so i would expect some procedures beginning, camera tests, orientation etc.

shedweller

Some more light reading: (It's kind of more of the same but it's all there is right now!)
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/savvy-scientist/nasas-sky-crane-over-mars/500

Mars is a much more intimidating place to land a spacecraft than those other worlds are because its atmosphere is paradoxically too dense to ignore and too thin to exploit well. The Martian atmosphere is only about a quarter as deep as Earth’s and its pressure is far lower but it still imposes a serious barrier to any spacecraft entering it at high speed.
Moreover, the planners of the Mars Science Laboratory’s mission have upped the ante by trying something extra ambitious during the initial atmospheric entry phase. Normally, space probes making fiery atmospheric entries have no control over their movements, so their landing sites can be predetermined only to within hundreds of kilometers. The Mars Science Laboratory craft, however, will for the first time attempt a guided entry, with thrusters trying to keep it within 20 kilometers or so of the preferred site in the Gale Crater — a geologically interesting area where Curiosity ought to be able to learn a lot about how water has acted on the planet throughout history.

And a Ustream video on the landing site, presented by Matt Golombek:http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21799427
It's an hour long but worth it!:)

shedweller

From nasa:

Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- A maneuver on Tuesday adjusted the flight path of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain.

The car-size, one-ton rover is bound for arrival the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early Aug. 6, EDT and Universal Time). The landing will mark the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate whether one of the most intriguing places on Mars ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life.

The latest trajectory correction maneuver, the third and smallest since the Nov. 26, 2011, launch, used four thruster firings totaling just 40 seconds. Spacecraft data and Doppler-effect changes in radio signal from the craft indicate the maneuver succeeded. As designed by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the maneuver adjusts the location where the spacecraft will enter Mars' atmosphere by about 125 miles (200 kilometers) and advances the time of entry by about 70 seconds.

"This puts us closer to our entry target, so if any further maneuvers are needed, I expect them to be small," said JPL's Tomas Martin-Mur, the mission's navigation team chief. Opportunities for up to three additional trajectory correction maneuvers are scheduled during the final eight days of the flight.

The maneuver served both to correct errors in the flight path that remained after earlier correction maneuvers and to carry out a decision this month to shift the landing target about 4 miles (7 kilometers) closer to the mountain.

It altered the spacecraft's velocity by about one-tenth of a mile per hour (50 millimeters per second). The flight's first and second trajectory correction maneuvers produced velocity changes about 150 times larger on Jan. 11 and about 20 times larger on March 26.

Shifting the landing target closer to the mountain, informally named Mount Sharp, may shave months off the time needed for driving from the touchdown location to selected destinations at exposures of water-related minerals on the slope of the mountain.

The flight to Mars has entered its "approach phase" leading to landing day. Mission Manager Arthur Amador of JPL said, "In the next 40 days, the flight team will be laser-focused on the preparations for the challenging events of landing day -- continuously tracking the spacecraft's trajectory and monitoring the health and performance of its onboard systems, while using NASA's Deep Space Network to stay in continuous communications. We're in the home stretch now. The spacecraft continues to perform very well. And the flight team is up for the challenge."

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120626.html#

Here we go!!!!!!!!:D:D

shedweller

I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if opportunity caught a picture of MSL entering the atmosphere! I'm trying to ascertain if their paths may cross but my grasp of orbital mechanics is somewhat poor!:)

edit: It will be on the opposite side and MSL isn't going to orbit at all, just go straight in so i don't think Opportunity will see anything.

edit#2: Here's a pdf with some more detail on the landing phase. There's some cad drawings..........

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090007730_2009006430.pdf

Beeker

shedweller wrote: »

I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if opportunity caught a picture of MSL entering the atmosphere! I'm trying to ascertain if their paths may cross but my grasp of orbital mechanics is somewhat poor!:)

edit: It will be on the opposite side and MSL isn't going to orbit at all, just go straight in so i don't think Opportunity will see anything.

edit#2: Here's a pdf with some more detail on the landing phase. There's some cad drawings..........

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090007730_2009006430.pdf[/QUOTE]
Cool stuff! Thanks.

Zubeneschamali

shedweller wrote: »

I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if opportunity caught a picture of MSL entering the atmosphere!

Like this time, when the MRO caught a picture of the Phoenix lander parachuting down.

shedweller

I put up another picture like the one above but the one above had updated itself. So here's the link to the nasa web page showing it:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/WhereIsCuriosity.html
Another few million miles shaved off!

camlinhall

Does anyone use online simulators to get an idea what it looks like from the viewpoint of the MSL as it heads towards Mars? The NASA website gives the "Eyes on the Solar System" visual tool, I was hoping to see how Mars was growing in size from the perspective of MSL, which is about 10 million kms out as I write. Mars would be taking up about a 2 second arc of the sky, and would appear a fifteenth the size of the moon as we see it from Earth. But it appears the same size as background stars on the simulator, maybe I'm doing something wrong here.

shedweller

Closest i can find is this:http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/


And a view equivalent to seeing mars through a 16X70 pair of binos, from MSL's location on june 18th:

shedweller

Here is the JPL solar system simulator:

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

Should be useful!

camlinhall

Here's what they think the situation looks like today. At 2' arc I think Mars would be starting to look bigger.

NASA totally needs to start putting live stream web cam type devices on these.

Even some still shots of the probes from a camera on a tether with the sun at the rear lighting the probe would be excellent. Use HDR exposure techniques then to show the stars too

shedweller

I would happily pay into a fund to have a camera like that on various spacecraft!
It would be nice if the landing camera on curiosity would come on before the heatshield seperated. Then we could actually see the thing falling away. Its things like that that give me the feeling of being there!
I dont think there is a camera on the descent stage either, only the rover. I'd say the mast cameras are well stowed to protect them so there would be no feed from them.
But seriously, how hard would it be to space rate a few mobile phone cameras and stick them in a few good locations, store the data and send it home later?
I guess i'll have to dream on eh?!

Duiske

Would be amazing alright. I guess a live stream would be asking too much, but if it was available I would pay well to be able to view it.

Beeker

shedweller wrote: »

I would happily pay into a fund to have a camera like that on various spacecraft!
It would be nice if the landing camera on curiosity would come on before the heatshield seperated. Then we could actually see the thing falling away. Its things like that that give me the feeling of being there!
I dont think there is a camera on the descent stage either, only the rover. I'd say the mast cameras are well stowed to protect them so there would be no feed from them.
But seriously, how hard would it be to space rate a few mobile phone cameras and stick them in a few good locations, store the data and send it home later?
I guess i'll have to dream on eh?!

While its a nice idea it would take up bandwidth which may not be available as it is necessary for monitoring the health of the vehicle at crucial times like landing. For this reason images are often recorded and played back later. It all depends on the available bandwidth.

Qwerty?

I'm sure you have all seen these pics elsewhere but just in case anyone hasn't

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2170196/Mars-Exploration-photo-Spectacular-360-panorama-captured-NASAs-Opportunity-Rover.html

Qwerty?

I'm sure you have all seen these pics elsewhere but just in case anyone hasn't

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2170196/Mars-Exploration-photo-Spectacular-360-panorama-captured-NASAs-Opportunity-Rover.html

DarkDusk

Can't wait for landing day, I've been following this ever this it launched! Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that everything is not going to go to plan - the landing sequence looks very risky and complicated! We all will be hoping for the best!

shedweller

The skycrane maneuver is off the wall but i have faith in it. I've seen various videos of things like quadrocopters, rc helis copying a human pilot then improving maneuvers as they repeat them, even lego mindstorms two wheeled machines balancing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JL04JJjocc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u82w9CpHc0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AiZJCxkeI

It'll work.......honestly!:D

TOMP

Very interesting NASA video of entry, descent, and landing of the Rover called "7 minutes of terror"

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=146903741

Love the Hollywood style dramatics in the video!

Interesting comment at 4:15, "20 metres above the surface, we lower the rover on a tether thats 21 feet long"

Hope they dont get their imperial/metric measurements mixed up in the real rover code!

Cant wait until Aug 6th. Will be up early that day.

DarkDusk

^^^
Already posted in #20, thanks anyway though!

ThatDrGuy

Anyone know anything about the landing A/I ? I note the landing zone has at least 2 mini craters that could cause bother. Is it just a drop it and hope or can it avoid potential obstacles ? Its had to find info on the power source also, since its not solar powered it will probably have a hard mission cutoff as the juice runs out.

namloc1980

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Anyone know anything about the landing A/I ? I note the landing zone has at least 2 mini craters that could cause bother. Is it just a drop it and hope or can it avoid potential obstacles ? Its had to find info on the power source also, since its not solar powered it will probably have a hard mission cutoff as the juice runs out.

It has radar to detect it's approach to the ground and to avoid large obstacles such as boulders.

It's powered by Radioisotope thermoelectric generator i.e. nuclear powered, with a minimum lifespan of 14 years. It's likely that Curiosity's mission will end because of mechanical failure (or budget cuts) long before it runs out of juice.

shedweller

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Anyone know anything about the landing A/I ? I note the landing zone has at least 2 mini craters that could cause bother. Is it just a drop it and hope or can it avoid potential obstacles ? Its had to find info on the power source also, since its not solar powered it will probably have a hard mission cutoff as the juice runs out.

There is some sort of AI in it. But i think it's more on the "pattern recognition" end of things.

shedweller

Things are heating up out there! Only 4.78 million km to go......only....

July 22: Trajectory Tracking Continues
Engineers at NASA's Deep Space Network continue to run differential ranging track passes to track Mars Science Laboratory's trajectory. These activities are designed to more closely track the spacecraft's trajectory and position as it draws nearer to the Red Planet and Mars' gravitational influence on the spacecraft increases.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1262

July 20: Curiosity Completes Week of Onboard Computer Preps
As of yesterday evening, the week-long reboot and configuration activities on Curiosity's two redundant main computers, or Rover Compute Elements -- including the uplink of spacecraft configuration parameters for entry, descent and landing -- were completed, a day ahead of schedule. Today, backup software for Curiosity's entry, descent and landing is being configured onboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft. In case Curiosity's prime computer resets for any reason during the critical minutes of entry, descent and landing, this backup software is designed to enable Curiosity's backup computer to promptly take control and finish the landing with a bare-bones version of entry, descent and landing instructions.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1260

TOMP

What are the odds for a successful landing?

Hundreds of things all have to go right and if only one goes wrong we have another Beagle...

shedweller

TOMP wrote: »

What are the odds for a successful landing?

Hundreds of things all have to go right and if only one goes wrong we have another Beagle...

I haven't read or heard any odds mentioned but........i'm hoping they are good!
And i've just found out i will be away for the landing so i wont be able to add any updates here. I might not even be able to "see" the landing, if you catch my drift. Grrr!
So if any of you have pics, vids and links to put up then fire away.

DarkDusk

Does anyone know if we will be able to watch the landing of the rover live? Through the means of NASA's Ustream feed or NASA TV?

vonbarracuda

NASA tv on the iPhone is brilliant . It had the Soyuz lift off and landing so I presume it will have this