Curiosity touches down on mars.

[3v0]

About 8 hours ago the NASA successfully landed a 9 meter long rover on mars called Curiosity. It carries 10X the scientific equipment of the Spirit rover. The landing was the most accurate to date and the rover was lower to the ground from a rocket powered sky crane. The sky crane had a camera that took video starting one mile from the surface. It will be fun to see that when it is beamed back to earth.View attachment 66170

The first picture arrived 2 minutes after touchdown but the dust kicked up from the sky crane rockets is still hanging in the air so they are not clear.
View attachment 66169

If you dig deep enough in the msn link you can find info on the instrumentation Curiosity carries. But you have to log in on that link only.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48511087/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UB_XhGGe6So
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/science/space/curiosity-rover-lands-safely-on-mars.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Rover

I see this as historic.

 

[transistor495]

I was amazed by the communication possibilities between the rover from Mars to Earth. The signals are captured by Odyssy and re-transmitted to Earth but heard that there also direct communication exists, ie the rover sends the signals directly to Earth and is captured by bigger antennas one in California and others are in Spain, Australia. Being considering the extreme distance(225 million km average) between the two planets it's simply amazing. I would also like know about the communication challenges we will be facing when going for a mission to the outer planets like Saturn etc. What is the extremity of faithful signal transmission/reception ranges we've achieved till now. Aren't we(ETO radio dudes) still struggling with long range(2km) fm transmitters btw

 

[JimB]

What is the extremity of faithful signal transmission/reception ranges we've achieved till now.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft which was launched in 1977, is currently 1.8 x 10^10 km from Earth.
NASA is still in daily communication with it.

Aren't we(ETO radio dudes) still struggling with long range(2km) fm transmitters btw

Those of us who play with unstable 100Mhz self excited oscillators may be having trouble to receive them with $2 radios.

But those of us who use transmitters which are stable and locked to a crystal if necessary, and use sensitive, stable, selective receivers, do not have much of a problem with 10, 100, or even 1000km.

JimB

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

This is quite an amazing feat and it's a job where PERFECTION matters. Not a get it done, get out and it's not my problem if it breaks.

You have 300 or so engineers and 300 or so scientists DEPENDENT on the rover landing successfully. The two satellites orbiting MARS did a bang up job. The ground doesn;t even look disturbed under Curiosity's wheels.

 

[3v0]

Given the nature of this forum and how many engineers and software guys it took to make this happen, seems odd that so few are interested in it.

 

[transistor495]

Ok, out of curiosity I've done a search on how Voyagers communicate with Earth and found a fairly nice explanation. If anyone interested much like me, they could go through the below link:-

https://science.howstuffworks.com/question431.htm

I'm again amazed that the Voyager old electronics still works beyond ageing. Also it looks like in every couple of years we're increasing the Antenna diameter of deep space network

 

[Boncuk]

Nice and clear pictures of the Mars.

It would certainly be good to know details of the radionuclide battery the vehicle carries on board.

It contains 4.5kg of plutonium dioxide.

Since the solar panels haven't been unfolded yet I'm curious to know the vehicle moves miles and miles with that heavy payload.

The power demand must be pretty high since it is equipped with six wheels each having its own motor in the wheel hub.

**broken link removed**


Boncuk

 

[MrAl]

News flash: "Abundant life found on Mars, Mars Rover battery explodes spewing radioactive dust killing all life forms"

or how about:
"All life forms found on Mars were dead killed from some sort of radioactive dust particles".

or even:
"Ummm, <clears throat>, we were just kidding we didnt really send anything to Mars...ok?"


On a more serious note, it is quite an achievement for mankind even through it may turn up nothing that important. Just to be able to send something THAT far away from our planet and have it send back info on what it finds is quite impressive. Im tempted to liken it to the achievement of the LHC, except maybe on a smaller scale.

So we continue to explore reaching farther and farther unless we are prevented from doing so due to some world wide natural disaster.

 

[KJ6EAD]

Given the nature of this forum and how many engineers and software guys it took to make this happen, seems odd that so few are interested in it.

I've watched and read a great deal about the mission. I don't think there's a lack of interest, quite the contrary, but I think most of us suppose there's not much more to be said. NASA's transparency and availability to the press have left us with little to question. The quality of the engineering is of such an obvious high caliber that anyone saying "I would have done it differently" would immediately be ridiculed.

 

[KJ6EAD]

It would certainly be good to know details of the radionuclide battery the vehicle carries on board.

It contains 4.5kg of plutonium dioxide.

Since the solar panels haven't been unfolded yet I'm curious to know the vehicle moves miles and miles with that heavy payload.

The power demand must be pretty high since it is equipped with six wheels each having its own motor in the wheel hub.

NASA managers have described the power source as a 110W trickle charger for the rover's main batteries. They run on batteries during the day and charge at night while circulating the waste heat from the power source through the science instruments to keep them warm.

 

[Mikebits]

Given the nature of this forum and how many engineers and software guys it took to make this happen, seems odd that so few are interested in it.

You think thats bad, no one liked my Dogfather movie

 

[3v0]

On a more serious note, it is quite an achievement for mankind even through it may turn up nothing that important. Just to be able to send something THAT far away from our planet and have it send back info on what it finds is quite impressive. Im tempted to liken it to the achievement of the LHC, except maybe on a smaller scale.

I fully expect the rover to come up with unexpected things. Most every craft we have sent in that direction has. With the subatomic stuff we theorize about it then go looking for proof. With space exploration we theorize then take a look and realize how clueless we really are.

What is important to each of us is an individual thing. For many people the discovery of life or former life on mars is no less important the the discovery of yet another subatomic particle. Both are interesting to me. Personally I am more interested in where cosmology is going with the dark matter and dark energy thing. The fact that what we can see is but a small fraction of what exists.

Maybe some day they will tie it all together.

 

[alec_t]

What amazes me is that the thing actually landed safely when you consider the complex sequence of getting it down onto Mars. When you multiply together all the respective probabilities of failure of individual components and parts of the mission the chances of success must be pretty slim. It says something for the increased reliability of modern components and fine engineering tolerances now achievable, plus excellent workforce skills. Let's hope we get some good science out of Curiosity, without having to send a guy up to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete .

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I doubt it's running Windows. Just think what would happen if cars ran Windows?

https://ezinearticles.com/?What-If-Your-Car-Ran-Microsoft-Windows?&id=1771662

Comparison of the various operating systems

**broken link removed**

 

[alec_t]

LOL. Any idea what software is used in Curiosity? I guess it must be laced with plenty of redundancy and error-checking, to provide work-arounds for any snags that come to light. A bit like the duct tape that saved the Apollo 13 mission.

 

[JimB]

Four engineers (one mechanical, one electrical and two software) are on their way to a meeting, part way there the car breaks down.

The mechanical engineer gets out and has a look under the bonnet (Hood for those in the USA).
He that declares, "nothing appears to be broken, and we have plenty of petrol" (Gas for those in the USA).

The electrical engineer gets out and has a look and declares, " the battery is charged, there are sparks at the plugs".

The software engineers get out and kick the tyres (Tires for those in the USA) and look mystified.

The all get back in the car and discuss what they should do next, call the breakdown service, get the bus, thumb a lift (Hitch a ride for those in the USA).
Eventually the software guys suggest, "Why don't we all get out and then get back in again and see if it will start!"

JimB

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Well, that was easy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VxWorks

 

[3v0]

If the car was vapor locked and enough time had passed in discussion it would start !

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Yep, and "vapor lock" is generally caused by a poor design, typically the routing of the gas lines.

When I was 15, my yet to drive car (because it was wrecked when I got it) had an annoying problem. It was traced to a hose about 3" long at the fuel tank. It had a slit in it towards the top. What a pain to find. My father's car at the time would not go up a steep hill and it was a really confusing problem. I fixed that at the time, too. Turned out one of the check valves popped out of the mechanical fuel pump. I changed a fuel pump on an exit on a parkway once and I'm glad I had the service manual of the car with me. The fuel pump was activated by a push rod, but you could not put the rod in and then the fuel pump. The suggestion was to put grease on the rod to hold it in place. Lately, I've done only minor car repairs.

 

[JimB]

If the car was vapor locked and enough time had passed in discussion it would start !

Good thinking Retired Software Engineer!

I once had a car which would not idle after going quickly around a left hand corner.
The car would return to normal after a while.

I got the clue to the problem when taking off the fuel cap to check if there really was any petrol in there.
As I took off the cap, there was a rush of air into the tank.
The problem was the breather valve in the tank cap. The fuel surge on the left hand bend would push air out of the tank, but air could not get back in, so there was a slight vacuum in the tank.
I dismantled the cap and cleaned up the valve and the problem was gone.

The car was a Ford XR3, one of the earlier ones with a carburetter rather than the later fuel injection.

JimB