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The road to Mars: NASA's next 30 years

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    #92
    mickmackey1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,288 ✭✭✭mickmackey1


    Last month Curiosity was diverted in order to avoid potentially contaminating a site, and yet here we have a half-ton lander smashing into the surface possibly scattering debris far and wide. Seems contradictory.

    Someone on another forum pointed out that there was a lot of unused fuel left on board, which could actually make it easier to find the location.


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    #93
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,400 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    josip wrote: »
    Orbiters are no longer cool, they're old tech, satellites are older than most humans.
    Landers on the other hand are cool, and will always help to sell a mission.

    There's also the "How come NASA can do this reliably and ESA can't?" question. I guess NASA has experience of landing on stuff that ESA don't but surely almost 50 years after the moon landings ESA would have caught up with that level of expertise?
    So far India has been the only one to get to Mars without a string of failures. First time lucky.

    The Great Galactic Ghoul must be appeased. And NASA might have one more satellite in orbit if Lockheed had used the metric system like they were told.

    The Russian's have had a bad run on Mars, and they're the guys who put landers on Venus , 90 atmospheres pressure of hot sulphuric acid and the electrical probe was blocked by a discarded camera lens cover. Twice. D'oh.



    The lander only had a two day battery anyway, so it was never going to survive the weekend. And don't get me started on the cost of NASA shipping a pair of 75Kg and six 25Kg tungsten counter weights to the surface.


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    #94
    ps200306
    Registered Users Posts: 1,601 ✭✭✭ps200306


    19 seconds in freefall ... would have been doing 260 km/h even if it started from stationary. Since the parachute jettisoned too early it was probably already doing a fair old pace. Could have splatted at several hundred km/h. Whatever's left might be hard to distinguish from a small crater.


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    #95
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,911 ✭✭✭✭josip


    ps200306 wrote: »
    19 seconds in freefall ... would have been doing 260 km/h even if it started from stationary. Since the parachute jettisoned too early it was probably already doing a fair old pace. Could have splatted at several hundred km/h. Whatever's left might be hard to distinguish from a small crater.

    It would be great if Tomnod could get a set of maps :D.


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    #96
    mickmackey1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,288 ✭✭✭mickmackey1


    Seems like they've already found the crash site -

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37731671


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    #97
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,911 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Interesting to read about the design and what was expected to happen.

    http://exploration.esa.int/mars/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module/

    The crumple zone must have been surprised by the 11km++/hour impact.


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    #98
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,911 ✭✭✭✭josip


    More detailed photos.

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/28/mars-landers-catastrophic-crash-new-images-released


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    #99
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,911 ✭✭✭✭josip


    So, a 540kph impact.
    ...while much of the mission went according to plan, a computer that measured the rotation of the lander hit a maximum reading, knocking other calculations off track.

    That led the navigation system to think the lander was much lower than it was, causing its parachute and braking thrusters to be deployed prematurely.


    “The erroneous information generated an estimated altitude that was negative – that is, below ground level,” the ESA said in a statement.

    I thought that kind of software bug was just an urban legend about the F-16.
    What kind of test harness do ESA use?
    Test it within it's design limitations..., yup, good to go. ?


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    #100
    rolion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,362 ✭✭✭rolion


    josip wrote: »
    So, a 540kph impact.



    I thought that kind of software bug was just an urban legend about the F-16.
    What kind of test harness do ESA use?
    Test it within it's design limitations..., yup, good to go. ?

    They didn't run any physical tests...only computer simulations.
    ESA was aware of the non tests results and decided to go ahead.
    Now, despite questioning if is a hardware of software glitch, they managed to get it so close.

    Apparently, they were afraid that will create a conflict NATO - Russia.


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    #101
    Pat Dunne
    Registered Users Posts: 3,003 ✭✭✭Pat Dunne


    rolion wrote: »
    Apparently, they were afraid that will create a conflict NATO - Russia.

    Could you enlighten us a little further, please?s


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    #102
    Pat Dunne
    Registered Users Posts: 3,003 ✭✭✭Pat Dunne


    rolion wrote: »
    Apparently, they were afraid that will create a conflict NATO - Russia.

    Could you enlighten us a little further, please?


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    #103
    mickmackey1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,288 ✭✭✭mickmackey1


    Pat Dunne wrote: »
    Could you enlighten us a little further, please?

    http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=79256&postid=1832343#1832343

    "ESA released the preliminary conclusions after the Italian Space Agency had accused that the decisive tests for the Sciaparelli lander simulations had been entrusted to an organization “which hadn’t enough expertize”. It’s about Arca Space Romanian company, based in Las Cruces, USA, as La Repubblica reported.

    In retort, the Arca Space Corporation manager, Dumitru Popescu warned the Italian space agency to be more careful, as they don’t have proves to support their accusations. “They could pay the price. We are at ease that we did all we could do: to run a specific test we should have flown very closely to the Russian base in Sevastopol. Russia has just annexed Crimea and we risked generating a conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO,” the Romanian manager argued."


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    #104
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,911 ✭✭✭✭josip


    So the Italians who were responsible for building Schiaparelli put the blame on the Romanians who they outsourced some of the work to.

    This Romanian company actually seems to be a US company whose main focus is hoverboards and going public according to their website.

    And with the whole of New Mexico at their disposal, they couldn't test a component because to do so at one of their corporate locations might upset the evil Russkis?

    The same Russians who were launching the thing into space?

    ESA
    is
    a
    fcuking
    joke


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