Posts Tagged ‘mars science laboratory’
Curiosity Rover Mission Has Narrowed Possible Destinations Down to Two
Mission scientists could recommend the rover climb a three-mile-high mound
Both sites could be boons for Mars research. The mound-boasting crater, known as the Gale Crater, contains things that require water to form, like clays and certain sulphates. And because the mound is in a crater, it’s kind of like a trap for sediments. Eberswalde, the other crater, also appears to be full of clays that were dumped there by a river that once flowed into it.
But at this point, it seems that Eberswalde is more of a gamble. If the sediments there turn out to be nothing more than simple rocks, the mission could be largely a failure from a scientific standpoint. Moreover, Eberswalde is further from the Martian equator, and hence colder. That means Curiosity would need additional heating to function there, and that could erode its life expectancy.
Does that make Gale a lock? Not exactly, but it would make for one interesting mission and one unlike any other ever undertaken by rovers on the Red Planet. The processes that created the mound in Gale are also unclear, but researchers are pretty sure that both clays and sulphates are present there, making it the only site among the final four to have both materials potentially present. And let’s not forget, a trip to Gale isn’t just a rover mission. It’s a mountaineering mission.
The idea is for Curiosity to land near the mound, then drive up its surface, sampling and analyzing on its way up. This should show the way the planet’s geology and hydrology changed over time. It could also yield organic material, if indeed there is any there. Mission scientists think Curiosity could cover at least the first thousand feet or so in its design lifetime.
But Opportunity is still functioning a full seven years after its three-month mission expired. Which means if Curiosity is half as hardy, it could climb a mile, or even two, before running out of steam. We’ve got a lot of great pics of the Martian surface as seen from the ground, but image the vistas from atop the Gale mound.
Of course, NASA doesn’t have to select either of these potential sites. The final decision is up to NASA brass and the actual Curiosity mission team. That final decision is expected in July.
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Mars Science Lab Needs $44 Million More For It to Launch This Year, NASA Says
The is supposed to launch in a window between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the alignment between Earth and Mars is the most favorable for an interplanetary trip. But as it stands now, the MSL team won’t finish all their work before launch unless they get more money, according to an internal audit prepared by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin.
“The project may have insufficient funds to complete all currently identified tasks prior to launch and may therefore be forced to reduce capabilities, delay the launch for 2 years, or cancel the mission,” he wrote.
If the mission is delayed, NASA will have to spend at least $570 million to adjust mission plans to account for a new planetary alignment, not to mention the advent of the Martian summer. A Martian year is almost double the length of an Earth year, so if MSL lands in late 2013 instead of this fall, it will be just in time for a warming Martian atmosphere to stir up dust storms.
This won’t be as problematic for Curiosity as it was for and Opportunity, because the new rover is nuclear-powered rather than solar-powered. But still, dust storms could interrupt its sensitive instruments, as well as its ability to communicate with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Deep Space Network on Earth.
The rover’s life cycle costs are already expected to top a whopping $2.5 billion, partly because it is so huge and so complex. Curiosity is four times as heavy as Spirit and Opportunity, and it contains 10 sensitive science instruments designed to look for signs of Martian life. It is designed to land using a complicated , the most complicated extraterrestrial landing maneuver NASA has ever attempted.
Launch was already delayed once — the rover was initially supposed to launch between September and October 2009, but several instruments were delivered late and NASA had to move its window back two years. Extra infusions of cash, most recently $71 million in December 2010, have kept the project humming along, but there are apparently still several issues — as of February, there were still 1,200 reports of problems and failures that could cause a delay, including contamination issues with the rover’s soil analysis instruments, and delays in flight software and fault protection systems.
The good news is that the rover is fully built, according to the audit. But apparently the work is far from over.
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Dramatic Video Shows How New Mars Rover Will Land Using a Sky Crane
Check out this amazing new animation of NASA’s new Mars rover, the car-sized , on its harrowing journey to the red planet.
The rover, also called Curiosity, is too big to land bouncing along airbags a la its predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity. And Mars doesn’t have enough atmosphere for a parachute to slow it sufficiently. So engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory came up with this hybrid approach, involving a rocket-slowed descent and a “sky crane.”
Curiosity will launch this fall and spend the next eight months traveling to Mars. It will enter the Martian atmosphere careening at 13,000 miles per hour, where its Apollo-esque heat shield will protect it from burning up. A parachute slows it down a bit before the rocket-powered descent stage. Then the sky crane lowers the rover, something that has never been done before .... just watch the super-realistic animation below.
Spirit and Opportunity were bouncing around like glorified beach balls when they landed, which was somewhat terrifying for any Mars enthusiast, let alone the rover teams at NASA and affiliated institutions. But a sky crane? It's hard to imagine the tension. Here's hoping it all goes as smoothly as the video.
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Proposed Hopping Mars Rover Will Harvest Its Own Fuel
A new Mars hopper concept involves a carbon dioxide collection and compression system, which would take advantage of CO2 phase changes to produce thrust. The Martian atmosphere is rich in CO2, so a robotic hopper that can harvest indigenous fuels would provide greater range while also solving the problem of fuel transport.
Hugo Williams and colleagues at the University of Leicester in the UK propose using a radioisotope decay generator, used in spacecraft for decades, to warm a “thermal capacitor” and to power a CO2 compressor.
The system would suck up CO2 from the atmosphere, use heat from radioactive decay to put the gas under extremely high pressure until it liquefies, and then store it in a special tank. The hopper would also store extra radioactive heat in a thermal capacitor. When the hopper needs to move, the liquified CO2 comes in contact with the capacitor, turning it back into a gas; the expanding CO2 is used as a thruster to launch the hopper and softly land it again.
Williams and colleagues have been working on propulsion ideas for a Mars lander project including the aerospace giant Astrium, BBC reports. Hoppers could conceivably move farther and faster than NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers — Spirit is mired in the sand and Opportunity just hit the 25-kilometer (15.5 mile) mark after seven years of driving.
The team is not the first to propose a planetary hopper; a team from MIT and Draper Laboratory have proposed a that looks like our beloved , using ducted fans to control the hopper’s height and a compressed nitrogen system to move it laterally.
But the British hopper solves the key problem of fuel, by taking advantage of Mars’ abundance of CO2.
A paper on the hopper is outlined in the .
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NASA Pronounces Phoenix Mars Lander Officially Dead
This photo, taken by Odyssey's orbiting companion, the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter, clearly shows a dark shadow where Phoenix's reflect-y solar panels used to be. Hundreds of pounds of ice were projected to build up on the craft over the winter, which proved too much for its solar panels to maintain structural integrity.
Earthly research continues on the wealth of data Phoenix sent back, including some of the most detailed findings relating to water ice beneath the Martian planet's soil. Phoenix's proudest moment was the discovery of perchlorate in the soil, which can act as a sponge, sucking up water in the atmosphere and feeding it to any number of microbes that thrive on it here on Earth.
Mars Science Laboratory, also known as "Curiosity" will follow in Phoenix's footsteps when it touches down on the surface .
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James Cameron Sending 3-D Cameras to Mars with Next NASA Rover
New zoom mast cameras could allow the Curiosity rover to take cinematic video sequences in 3-D
Cameron approached NASA administrator Charles Bolden about including the 3-D camera in January, according to the . NASA had originally cut the 3-D camera and zoom lens options back in 2007, for budgetary reasons.
But Cameron's argument that a high-res 3-D camera would boost public interest swayed Bolden to his side. The U.S. space agency recently funded completion of the 3-D and zoom-capable cameras by Malin Space Science Systems, Inc, the company which developed the Mastcams.
Restoring the zoom is not a science issue, although there will be some science benefits," said Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mastcam. "The fixed focal length Mastcams we just delivered will do almost all of the science we originally proposed. But they cannot provide a wide field of view with comparable eye stereo."
That has led to a scramble to build and test the zoom lens cameras before the MSL rover commences final testing in early 2011. The two Mastcams under development would have 15:1 zoom lenses which can image from telephoto (100mm focal length) down to wide-angle (6.5mm focal length).
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover is slated to carry four science cameras mounted on a remote sensing mast, where they can pan or tilt to take images all around the rover out to the horizon. All of the cameras currently have fixed focal lengths.
By contrast, the zoom lenses would allow for "cinematic video sequences in 3-D on the surface of Mars," Malin noted. Given our of Hubble 3D, it's safe to say that we're crossing our fingers for Cameron to get his in time for blastoff to Mars.
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