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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory |OT| 2,000 Pounds of Science!

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DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Smiles and Cries said:
slow with those results we are...

when do they plan to drive the thing? has it even moved? Don't they need to test the wheels ore something?
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Had it's first Test Drive last week. Don't know if it's gone anywhere else yet thought.

599349_401814223201892_2062308237_n.jpg
 
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GroundCombo

Member
DrForester said:
Had it's first Test Drive last week. Don't know if it's gone anywhere else yet thought.
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Test Drive Unlimited 3: Mars. Curiosity is actually rolling pretty hard now, on the way to a science destination about 400m away where they start the serious drilling. That will take a while (I think they've covered about 60m in total), but they're going to have a stop somewhere along the way to test more instruments. Also, today they had a break from driving and took some environmental data and images.
 
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BruiserBear

Banned
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Parch

Member
That Recon Orbiter shot is nice. What altitude is that at?

They should be able make good time on move days. The rocky terrain can't be too much of a concern when they're planning to climb that mountain. Mount Sharp is 3 miles high so that will be an interesting climb.
 
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BruiserBear

Banned
Parch said:
That Recon Orbiter shot is nice. What altitude is that at?

They should be able make good time on move days. The rocky terrain can't be too much of a concern when they're planning to climb that mountain. Mount Sharp is 3 miles high so that will be an interesting climb.
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I don't think they're ever really going to "climb" that mountain. I suspect they're just aiming for the base, and lower portions, in hopes of digging into the oldest rock possible to see what's inside it.
 
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DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Insane Metal said:
Damn, things have slowed down quite a lot. Many news the first few days, now we almost get nothing for a whole week. Too bad =(
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Well, the rover is on the move now. No point stopping every few hundred meters to take a new panoramic that will look almost identical to the last one.
 
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Parch

Member
BruiserBear said:
I don't think they're ever really going to "climb" that mountain. I suspect they're just aiming for the base, and lower portions, in hopes of digging into the oldest rock possible to see what's inside it.
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I haven't read a detailed mission plan, I just took this from that linked article...
Mission scientists also plan to send the rover up Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer) mountain rising up from the center of the crater.
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That sounds like they plan to do some climbing to me, but probably after they've explored the base.

If I remember right, Opportunity crawled in and out of a fairly deep crater, and Spirit climbed a large hill, so Curiosity is probably capable of a 3 miles climb depending on the slope and terrain. That's assuming there's some science worth the trip.
 
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BruiserBear

Banned
Parch said:
I haven't read a detailed mission plan, I just took this from that linked article...That sounds like they plan to do some climbing to me, but probably after they've explored the base.
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Interesting. Maybe they chose the word "climb" in a general sense. It's very hard to imagine them jeopardizing this rover by attempting to climb that entire mountain.
 
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Parch

Member
Yeah, "climb" is relative to capability. They're not climbing cliffs, but if the slope isn't too severe, Curiosity should be capable of doing a lot more than the previous rovers.

I might be getting my Rovers mixed up, but it was a critical part of Opportunity's mission when they decided to enter that large crater. They explored the rim and eventually decided to take the plunge knowing full well they might never get out. They did get out but it was really sandy in parts and they got stuck at one point. It took them a month to escape that sand dune.
 
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DeFiBkIlLeR

Banned
One thing that you never really appreciate in these photo's is just how freaking cold this machinery is having to operate in.

I think I'm right in saying that the warmest place on Mars is like the coldest place on Earth, which I assume is Antarctica and approaching -60c, or something like it.
 
Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
DeFiBkIlLeR said:
One thing that you never really appreciate in these photo's is just how freaking cold this machinery is having to operate in.

I think I'm right in saying that the warmest place on Mars is like the coldest place on Earth, which I assume is Antarctica and approaching -60c, or something like it.
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No, sometimes it's chilly, IIRC they got 2ºC max in the readings.
 
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Parch

Member
Yeah, not always bitterly cold, and it's moisture that makes things "freeze up". Mars is dry, and electronics prefer the cold anyway.
The Martian winters were rougher on previous rovers because they relied on solar energy. Curiosity should be able to chug along just fine during the really cold months.
 
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gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Posted?

http://news.sky.com/story/983271/mars-fears-curiosity-will-contaminate-planet

Nasa officials are hoping Curiosity does not find water amid fears Earth microbes have made it to the Red Planet, reports say.

A sterilised drill bit was reportedly loaded into a drill on the rover by engineers before take-off, when it should have been automatically fitted once Curiosity landed.

The technical staff are said to have decided to open the microbe-free box containing the bit themselves because they feared a rough landing would damage the automated mechanism.

But the LA Times reported that they did not tell the official responsible for preventing contamination what they had done until the last minute.

Nasa rules state that the drill bit box should not be unsealed without knowledge of the scientist responsible for stopping contamination on Mars.

Microbiologist Catharine Conley reportedly learned of the breach just before take-off on November 26, but by then it was too late to fix the error.

"They shouldn't have done it without telling me," planetary protection officer Ms Conley was quoted as saying.
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Fears have been voiced that if the drilling attempt into the surface of Mars hits water or ice, bacterial spores may survive and even spread.

"Water or ice near the surface in Gale Crater was not a significant probability," Nasa programme executive David Lavery said.

"We weighed that against the risks of not having a bit mounted in the drill prior to launch, and the spectre of not being able to drill any holes at all on Mars."

Water and ice is known to exist elsewhere on the planet.

Some 250,000 bacterial spores on the rover were estimated to have survived take-off from Earth and landing on Mars, according to officials.

But most were expected to have been killed within minutes of landing due to freezing temperatures, the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and strong ultraviolet light.

Nasa attempted to get around the strict rules on contamination just days before take-off, when Ms Conley said she had the mission to land reclassified "as long as there is no ice or water" in the area.
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Ms Conley's predecessor John D Rummel, now professor of biology at East Carolina University, said: "It will be a sad day for Nasa if they do detect ice or water.

"That's because the Curiosity project will most likely be told, 'Gee, that's nice. Now turn around.'"
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Sort of sounds like it's not a big deal as long as they don't run into water...which they probably won't.
 
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Parch

Member
Probably not a big deal. Those procedures sound like they're just being extra careful. Sci-fi movies make people paranoid about bacteria evolving into some sort mutant martian lifeform but the chances seem nil to me even if some earth dirt finds martian water. Wouldn't there be a much higher probability of foreign contamination from asteroids?

No harm in being careful with the rovers, but I agree that contamination is unavoidable and highly probable that absolutely nothing happens if it does.
 
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WeAreStarStuff

Member
Parch said:
Probably not a big deal. Those procedures sound like they're just being extra careful. Sci-fi movies make people paranoid about bacteria evolving into some sort mutant martian lifeform but the chances seem nil to me even if some earth dirt finds martian water. Wouldn't there be a much higher probability of foreign contamination from asteroids?
No harm in being careful with the rovers, but I agree that contamination is unavoidable and highly probable that absolutely nothing happens if it does.
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One of the theories of the origins of life on Earth.
 
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Lumpy Onion

Member
Could someone please direct me to the best HD video's of this stuff that I can find. I want to download them and watch them on my PS3 but don't know where to start looking. Thanks.
 
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Lucky Forward

Member
Mars Curiosity Rover’s Landing Video Now In Ultra HD

Independent video producer Bard Canning spent four weeks painstakingly reprocessing imagery released earlier by NASA showing the rover’s near-perfect descent as captured by its onboard Mars Descent Imager (MARDI), a downward facing camera.

The original imagery, 297 frames, was compiled by NASA into a video that shows the rover’s final two-and-a-half minutes of a 14-minute, hair-raising descent that involved an abrupt 14,000-mile-per-hour to zero slowdown. The rover began capturing the imagery just before it ejected its heat shield, which can be seen in the first few seconds of the video.

Canning used a video processing technique known as motion-flow interpolation, which involves creating new frames to fit in between existing frames, increasing the overall frame rate from the original, which was just 4-frames-per-second, and making the video appear more fluid at 30 frames-per-second. He also enhanced the color and the detail of the imagery and re-rendered it at “enterprise-quality 1080p, 50,000 kbps (instead of the usual ~1000kbps).”
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B

Bollocks

Member
Agreed this is amazing.

Also can anybody give a summary about the scientific discoveries all those mars missions made? Things that we now know thanks to those missions.
 
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