'Curiosity' - NASA Mars Rover - Due to land 5th Aug 2012

[mrmr96]

I only found out about this thing today, and it's INCREDIBLE. To land from several thousand MPH they first hit the atmosphere and use friction, then deploy a parachute, then... well then it gets CRAZY.

Check out this video before reading the thread, as you won't guess what they do next!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...

More info here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/27/nasa_curio...

[tmk2]

That is insane. Good luck to them, so much to go wrong. Wonder how the other rovers are getting on

[anonymous-user]

Superb video! That should be shown to all kids as an example of what you can do with science, and that "being a celebrity" is not the be all or end all of life!

[rhinochopig]

Can't help but think this is doomed to failure due to its complexity. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though.

[mrmr96]

rhinochopig said:

Can't help but think this is doomed to failure due to its complexity. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though.

+1

Still, good on them for having a crack at it.

PS - did you know this bad boy launched on November 26, 2011?
Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laborato...

[anonymous-user]

Absolutely awesome!

[Butter Face]

That


Is



Mental.

Wow.

[mrmr96]

The rope is only 21 feet long! That sky crane has some seriously clever hovering to do!

Also, imagine if you didn't know what it was but saw it make a landing on Earth... seeing this flaming ball suddenly fire a parachute, jetison the heat sheild and steer itself to a flat landing zone before launching a sky crane which hovers and lowers a 6 wheeled robot... you'd shat yourself!

[Eric Mc]

There was a thread started on this when it alunched somewhere.

It is an amazingly ambitios mission and will be one of the riskiest Mars missions yet.

[Butter Face]

mrmr96 said:

The rope is only 21 feet long! That sky crane has some seriously clever hovering to do!

Also, imagine if you didn't know what it was but saw it make a landing on Earth... seeing this flaming ball suddenly fire a parachute, jetison the heat sheild and steer itself to a flat landing zone before launching a sky crane which hovers and lowers a 6 wheeled robot... you'd shat yourself!

When you say it like that you realise how mental it actually is!

[Simpo Two]

I think they've been watching too many sci-fi films.

Bruce Willis won't be there when a thruster fails and the whole lot ends up as a collection of parts on the Martian surface.

[rufusruffcutt]

I still can't get over how big the rover actually is, roughly the size of a classic mini!. Good luck to all involved.

[Eric Mc]

That's why they couldn't use the equally bonkers but more normal airbag system.

[Simpo Two]

I may be repeating myself here but the Viking Lander was the size of a Cadillac and they got that down in the 1970s somehow without Bruce Willis or a million computers.

'Ooh, technology! Let's complify things!'

McLaren have so much technology they can't even make a sack trolley work...

[MKnight702]

rufusruffcutt said:

I still can't get over how big the rover actually is, roughly the size of a classic mini!. Good luck to all involved.

Wow, that looks like some expensive wreckage to be

a: strewn all over the Mars surface or

b: ploughed into the Mars surface leaving a massive crater.

[Eric Mc]

Simpo Two said:

I may be repeating myself here but the Viking Lander was the size of a Cadillac and they got that down in the 1970s somehow without Bruce Willis or a million computers.

'Ooh, technology! Let's complify things!'

McLaren have so much technology they can't even make a sack trolley work...

By modern standards Viking was primitive - and it didn't have to go anywhere after it landed. It was static.

This is a very different beast altogether.

The reason why they have gone for this set up is because they did not want the rover to have to sit on top of a static lander as all previous rovers have done (Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity).
In this project, the rover will land directly on its wheeled undercarriage - literally ready to roll after the landing. As the wheeled undercarriage is less sturdy than a set of lock down legs, a method had to be devised to gently lower the assembly on to the surface.

The landing process used by Curiosity saves a massive amount of weight because a static landing platform is essentially dead weight once the spacecraft arrives on the planet. With no landing platform, the weight that would have been taken by the lander can be allocated to making the rover itself bigger and packing it with more experiments thereby making it a far more useful project.

Of course it's risky - all such projects are. Everybody thought that the airbag landing system was totally mad - but it worked every time it's been used.

[shalmaneser]

Eric Mc said:

That's why they couldn't use the equally bonkers but more normal airbag system.

Much better control of where you put the bloody thing is the reason!

Here's hoping nothing fks up!!!!

[thinfourth2]

Eric Mc said:

By modern standards Viking was primitive - and it didn't have to go anywhere after it landed. It was static.

This is a very different beast altogether.

The reason why they have gone for this set up is because they did not want the rover to have to sit on top of a static lander as all previous rovers have done (Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity).
In this project, the rover will land directly on its wheeled undercarriage - literally ready to roll after the landing. As the wheeled undercarriage is less sturdy than a set of lock down legs, a method had to be devised to gently lower the assembly on to the surface.

The landing process used by Curiosity saves a massive amount of weight because a static landing platform is essentially dead weight once the spacecraft arrives on the planet. With no landing platform, the weight that would have been taken by the lander can be allocated to making the rover itself bigger and packing it with more experiments thereby making it a far more useful project..

It sound bonkers until you look at the logic driving it

Then it becomes hugely sensible


Fit rocket motors to the rover then great you have to drive around lugging some rocket motors for the next few years

Sit the rover on a rocket lander then great you have to fit a set of ramps to get off the lander and then you also have to fit the lander with a set of legs lots of weight

Dangle the rover off a piece of string and then crash the rocket lander then no ramps and landing legs

[Zad]

tmk2 said:

That is insane. Good luck to them, so much to go wrong. Wonder how the other rovers are getting on

One of the two got bogged down in soft sand and couldn't point itself towards the sun before winter came so it is now "lost". The second made a hell of a trek cross-country to Endeavour crater where it is currently sat and still doing science (The Portal 2 "Still Alive" music comes to mind). It has a couple of wonky drive motors and did a big chunk of the drive in reverse, to spread the bearing lubricant around.

Here is a comparison of rover sizes:



Design life? 90 days.
2995 days later. Still alive.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportu...

Spirit + Opportunity were a bit of a rush job. By NASA's standards they had no resources, little money and around 6 months to get them built and ready to fly. They used known good commercial designs that had flown on Mars Sojourner and spares from that development process. They also allowed engineers to get on with the job rather than NASA's traditional management-heavy programmes.

A huge part of the software onboard the rovers wasn't anywhere near ready when they launched. More than that, a lot of the hardware wasn't either. They use FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) which were programmed during the cruise phase. As faults have developed in the system since, they have reprogrammed both the hardware and software several times.

There is another similar major engineering success which had no money and no resources. No managers, just 2 engineers. The ARM microprocessor design.

[mrmr96]

Great post, thanks for the info!