UPDATE: Touchdown confirmed! Congratulations NASA JPL! First image received. See below.
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I thought I”d take a minute to advise you that some real science and engineering that will be see from NASA tonight rather than the politically motivated science from scientist turned arrested activist Dr. James Hansen in the latest NASA GISS claim distributed via AP’s compliant repeater, Seth Borenstein. On the plus side, Seth at least gave a voice to the other side.
Readers may recall I photographed and wrote about the Curiosity exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum last year:
Experts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) share the challenges of Curiosity’s rover final 7 minutes to landing on the surface of Mars on the 5th of August,2012 ( 10:31 US Pacific time) . Watch the video below, well worth your time.
Curiosity is a Mars rover launched by NASA on November 26, 2011. Currently en route to the planet, it is scheduled to land in Gale Crater on August 5, 2012 ( US Pacific time) . The rover’s objectives include searching for past or present life, studying the Martian climate, studying Martian geology, and collecting data for a future manned mission to Mars. It will explore Mars for 2 years.
Curiosity’s landing Times in regarding time travel zones:
Aug 5, 2012 10:31 p.m. US Pacific
Aug 6, 2012 1:31 a.m. US Eastern
Aug 6, 2012 3:31 p.m. Hobart – Australia
Aug 6, 2012 5:31 a.m Universal (UTC)
Curiosity cost: A cool US$2.5 billion
Cool stuff Bonus (Mars Science Laboratory) such as interactive experiences can be found in:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/
NASA official site:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
NASA-TV coverage starts two hours before landing. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html (h/t to Ric Werme)
UPDATE: Touchdown confirmed! Congratulations NASA! First image received. Will post as soon as I have something to show you.
UPDATE2 self explanatory
Wait a minute, Obama bin Laden or Holdren didn’t build Curiosity — someone else did!
It was so wonderful to see all those Muslims celebrating at NASA. The main mission now of course is to promote Islam and all of it’s wonderful achievements around the world and it’s contributions by way of Sharia towards the advancement of women.
This is what NASA is all about Outreach to the Universe, not Muslims.
:”I thought I”d take a minute to advise you that some real science and engineering that will be see from NASA tonight rather than the politically motivated science from scientist turned arrested activist Dr. James Hansen in the latest NASA GISS claim distributed via AP’s compliant repeater, Seth Borenstein.”
Thanks for the story on the Mars landing of Curiosity. I agree with you that “real science” and “Jim Hansen” should not be used in a sentence together…
Curiosity to its iPad: “nearest carwash?”
Ian says:
August 5, 2012 at 7:56 pm
there is no way in a million years this will land exactly like it shows in the video, or should I say the ” computer model” …this all looks pretty “cool” for the video generation, but wait until tomorrow…and you will all be wondering about that billion dollars . Absolutely impossible in my opinion. They may try and drag it on for a few days, like lost radar etc , or whatever , you know the usual excuses.
I will explain why I am so confidant in the eventual outcome tomorrow.
Ok, Ian, you’re up 😉
Apparently the first image came off somebody’s cellphone in the sim hangar next to the moon landing mock-up… (you didn’t think they’d throw away good billions when there are so many politicians to be bought off did you?) /sarc (in case you lack diversity and are therefore handicapped…).
…
I had the good fortune to meet and listen to the project lead for the Opportunity and Serendipity delivery team a few years back, and her tale of the seat of the pants development and ultimately successful deployment of the “bouncing ball” was enthralling. A ton of good innovative engineering, good old fashioned bravado, and another ton of crossed fingers and praying they were actually right went into that project, and no doubt the same here. I expect there was a lot of white knuckles last night and a flurry of toasts to the effect that tomorrow “we’re either the biggest heros or the world’s biggest losers”. It takes a lot of “the right stuff” to put your career on the line on a hail mary longshot and not blink.
“Curiosity” is aptly named. Well describes the paradox of a government that can put a car on a distant planet, but can’t manage to put the right envelope in the right mailbox….
Kasuha says:
August 6, 2012 at 1:41 am
Perhaps you are foolish enough to not add lead until the scale weight is correct … I’m not, nor I assume are the NASA engineers. If your issue were really an issue we’d never test scale models of anything … but guess what? We do it all the time.
Yes, that’s why missions to Mars have had such a high success rate … not.
There’ve been lots of failures in the Mars game, Kasuha, Mariner 3, Mariner 8, the Mars Observer, the Beagle 2, the Fobos-Grunt mission, the list is long. By the passion in the cheering I saw last night, there were a lot of relieved engineers … but gosh, if they know Mars so well and their computers are so good, why were they so relieved? In the Gospel According to Kasuha, they had nothing to fear thanks to their computers …
w.
Bravo, NASA! I actually had a dream last night that a policeman told me that the landing had failed, so I was kind of dreading checking the news this morning…. much relieved to find that my prognostication was incorrect. Whew
Willis>
“If I ran the zoo and I were trying out this plan, I’d start out by building one of those suckers at about maybe 1/10th or 1/12th scale, something like that, so they’d be cheap. I’d start by kicking them out of airplanes, and seeing how well they performed. I’d do that about ten times, and each time I’d figure out how to fix the bunch of problems that the test revealed. At the end, the system should be good enough to reliably land one on the NASA parking lot.
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having working with scale model testing, it’s important to remember that you test things that can scale. Otherwise your test isnt very useful.
Have a look at the problem. The problem is driven by the weight of the lander and the thinness of the atmosphere so what EXACTLY do you propose by building and testing a 1/10 scale model in the earth’s atmosphere.
1. wont test the heat sheild or the flight control system
2. wont test the heat shield release mechanism
3. wont test the parachute.
4. wont test the retro rockets
5. wont test the release mechanism for the lander or the crane.
Basically at a 1/10th scale in earths atmosphere you cant test ANYTHING that is mission critical. the “system” you want to test has to be defined.. what is it? what “system”
heat sheild? radar? parachute, crane? You want to build minatures of those? test cannot be SCALED.
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Then I’d kick a few of them out of a the space station, or send them up by rocket, and let them plummet down to the earth. See if I could land them safely.
From space, 1/10 scale? what are you trying to test? “landing safely’? that means you are building a 1/10 scale of the crane and lander. you learn nothing about the actual mechanism.
you learn nothing about the dust that kicks up. In doing scale tests you have to define what you are testing. “the system” is not a definition.
“Then I’d build the half scale model, and I’d kick it out of the space station, and see if I could land that puppy reliably on some remote deserted island or somewhere.
again, to test what? the flight control software? maybe. the heat sheild? etc.
And then, and only then, I’d build the full-scale one and lash it onto a rocket and shoot it off to Mars.
I suspect that NASA has not done anything like what I would see as the required amount of actual testing, not computer simulation but testing … but I could be wrong, maybe they have, and anyway, I’m just a reformed cowboy, I was born yesterday, what do I know?
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here is some background. you dont know what you are talking about you have never worked building a complex system. you dont understand that you test subsystems and “scale” testing is very limited and in this case almost useless since it doesnt address any unknowns.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/11/28/sky-crane-how-to-land-curiosity-on-the-surface-of-mars/
yes you have to rely on models and testing WHERE the testing can actually provide and answer to a SPECIFIC question.
Things you want to test and CAN test
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videoarchive/
A test of the radar done with an old test platform (Drydens F18) I’m familiar with ( she gives great data)
Between 2006 and 2011, engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., conducted a series of aerial tests on the radar that will be used to land NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. Using a NASA Dryden F/A-18 Hornet and a Eurocopter AS350 helicopter, they tested the radar’s performance at different altitudes and velocities over a simulated Martian terrain in the Southern California high desert.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/HornetHelo20120804/HornetHelo20120804-320.mp4
Landing test
Landing Practice – March 06, 2012
How do you prepare to land a one-ton rover lightly on the surface of Mars? Practice!
Re: media bias, I don’t think it’s an argument anymore after seeing the Hansen story thoroughly spread through the media yesterday, including a nice big section on MSN.com.
They’ve long stopped rushing their narrative. It’s now a full on stampede.
Congrats NASA on a successful landing! Looking forward to data collected and analyzed.
My son and I are working on our “Who’s on Mars?” routine !!
Looks like Willis touched a nerve, …..
Holdren and Bolden left a bad taste in my mouth that even Listerene cannot remove, ….
Don’t forget that NASA owes much of the technology that made this kind of Mars landing possible to what they developed almost 50 years ago for the Apollo program’s lunar lander using the LLRV. (It ain’t all that ‘new’.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D4GIM2bEbg&feature=endscreen&NR=1
http://www.spaceflight101.com/msl-mission-updates-3.html
– Official Landing Time: 5:14:39 UTC – August 6, 2012
– Landing inside Ellipse: YES
– Landing Speed Vertical: 0.6739m/s (Planned: 0.75m/s)
– Landing Speed Horizontal: 0.04437m/s (Planned max: 0.1m/s)
– Preliminary Landing Site: Lat: -4.591817 deg – Lon: 137.440247 deg
– Distance from 100% Accuracy Target: 2.279 Kilometers
– Descent Stage Fuel Remaining at Flyaway: 140.6 Kilograms (Planned: ~92 Kilograms)
– Battery Charge at final Data Point: 93%
– Bus Voltage: 32.2V
– MMRTG Temperatures: Within Spec.
– Vehicle Transition to Surface Mode: YES
– Vehicle Health Confirmed with ODY Data: YES
I stayed up last night (the morning) to follow the mission. NASA has a great browser plugin that let’s you follow a simulation in real time including live audio from mission control. I was watching when I realized that I was getting frame rate displays from my installation of FRAPS. So it occurred to me that I could record it. I’ve got the whole thing from about 40 minutes before cruise stage separation to them receiving the first picture from Curiosity. WTG NASA! I’m amazed that Rube Goldberg descent and landing plan worked. I hope the Curiosity has a long and fruitful mission.
Well, Ian @ur momisugly August 5, 2012 at 7:56 pm seems conspicuous by his absence.
I wish certain other NASA employees felt more terror at the prospect of being held accountable for their role in the catastrophic global warming charade. Jule’s Ezekiel 25:17 rant on Pulp Fiction comes to mind.
Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/7-minutes-of-glory-as-NASA-lands-rover-on-Mars-3764638.php#next
Has a slide show. The first is most note worthy:
http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/14/43/41/3291248/3/628×471.jpg
Curiosity on the Parachute taken from Mars Reconisance Orbiter.
Yes, it’s two silvery grey blobs against a very dark background.
A “bad” picture that I had no expectation of existing at all.
Some background on the picture you quoted:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/06/amazing-nasa-photographs-split-second-when-curiosity-enters-mars/
Oh Boy! Can’t wait to see what they find out. The normal findings usually indicate that our previous theories were wrong about a variety of planetary factors like what we have found out as a result of our visit to Vesta. Real science!
The moral is do not quote theory, models, guesstimates and ideas as fact.
Shock photo!
Paul Westhaver says: August 5, 2012 at 11:04 pm: Mars has 2 puny moonlets, no atmosphere to speak of, no magnetic field, no life, and no reason for humanity to go there.
Mining, so I’ve been told.
Paul Carter says: August 5, 2012 at 11:39 pm: The Russians won’t be too pleased about the slight to their successful Venera Venus landings. Surely Holdren as a science adviser should know a major bit of space history ?
???? What for? /sarc