Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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For those depressed by Shuttle foam failings, you can set your sights higher and redder...
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launch: 1 day 22 hrs and counting... -Launch window opens on August 10, 2005 at 7:53:58 AM EST- Official Mission Site Launch Website (with webcast links) Pre-launch briefing 2PM EDT Aug 8th on NASA TV... also August 9, 2005 at 10:30 am EDT Hosted by red-haired space hottie... woot! Mission Animations Last edited by curiousuburb : 2005-08-08 at 08:50. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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MRO Launch delayed 24 hours...
Apparently due to Redundant Rate Gyro failure during manufacturer testing... engineers are testing the gyro and wondering if the same failure might occur in the gyros installed on MRO's Atlas V launcher. If so, they'd scrub the launch and replace the gyros in the rocket... if they can't repeat the failure in follow up tests on duplicate systems, they may cross fingers and send the spacecraft. Last edited by curiousuburb : 2005-08-11 at 06:02. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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Another 24 hr scrub
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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4 minutes and counting... all systems go
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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LAUNCH Success!! Mars ETA in 7 months.
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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Meanwhile... Spirit has now passed 2 years on Mars.
Originally warrantied only for 3 months, in part due to fears the solar panels would get covered by Martian dust and kill its ability to recharge, it just sent back this sweet self portrait. As usual, click pics for source pages and more sizes. Woo... Shiny! Still Shining After All This Time (Polar) This bird's-eye view combines a self-portrait of the spacecraft deck and a panoramic mosaic of the Martian surface as viewed by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. The rover's solar panels are still gleaming in the sunlight, having acquired only a thin veneer of dust two years after the rover landed and commenced exploring the red planet. Spirit captured this 360-degree panorama on the summit of "Husband Hill" inside Mars' Gusev Crater. During the period from Spirit's Martian days, or sols, 583 to 586 (Aug. 24 to 27, 2005), the rover's panoramic camera acquired the hundreds of individual frames for this largest panorama ever photographed by Spirit. This image is an approximately true-color rendering using the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters for the Martian surface, and the 600-nanometer, 530-nanometer, and 480-nanometer filters for the rover deck. This polar projection is a compromise between a cylindrical projection (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...0051205a.html; http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03610), which provides the best view of the terrain, and a vertical projection, which provides the best view of the deck but distorts the terrain far from the rover. The view is presented with geometric seam correction. Opportunity is similarly sharp looking after almost the same length of time. Bird's-Eye View of Opportunity at 'Erebus' (Polar) This view combines frames taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on the rover's 652nd through 663rd Martian days, or sols (Nov. 23 to Dec. 5, 2005), at the edge of "Erebus Crater." The mosaic is presented as a polar projection. This type of projection provides a kind of overhead view of all of the surrounding terrain. Opportunity examined targets on the outcrop called "Rimrock" in front of the rover, testing the mobility and operation of Opportunity's robotic arm. The view shows examples of the dunes and ripples that Opportunity has been crossing as the rover drives on the Meridiani plains. This view is an approximate true color rendering composed of images taken through the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters. Meanwhile... MRO telemetry updates: and for those who missed it at the time, MRO launch videos are now online Last edited by curiousuburb : 2006-01-05 at 07:34. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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MRO expected to arrive at Mars on March 10th...
plans to take almost six months to adjust orbit via aerobraking, but initial orbital success should be known in the early hours of next saturday. Quote:
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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Mars, schmars...the real story here is Ms. Nail.
I love them redheads, man. |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Meanwhile funding is being pulled for a host of other projects that were promised not to be touched. I won't go into why. Ultimately the reasons are self-evident.
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Most of these surveying satellites, telescopes and probes do not require launch by shuttle. They can get up there with a Delta rocket in most cases. This stuff pisses me off. We always hear the talk during promise time, but rarely see the walk. If they fuck with the NGT, I'm going to start a new space-friendly terrorist group. Unlike PETA and ELF, people will like us because they understand what the quest for this kind of knowledge can do to advance our civilization as a whole. Plus -and this is key- we won't' burn down their houses or throw paint on them as they walk out of the butcher shop or furrier. ...into the light of a dark black night. Last edited by Moogs : 2006-03-02 at 09:20. |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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We could call it ... "All your space are belong to us."
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Good one.
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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MRO aims for orbit insertion tomorrow
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monkey with a tiny cymbal
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Lost
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Wow. Good Luck to NASA. Martian Orbital Insertion has not been good to them in the past decade. Let's hope this one goes smoothly.
From a cnn.com article: Quote:
I really hope all goes well. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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NASA expect to get 34 Terabits back from MRO over its lifetime... some from the primary mission, and another 20+ Terabits from its extended mission responsibilities as a relay station for future landers.
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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What've we got, a couple of hours before we know if they achieved orbit?
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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Press Release Six months of aerobraking to refine the orbit, but MRO's first big sphincter moment at Mars has passed. |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Does it take six months because of the velocity reduction, or is it that it will take that many small maneuvers to precisely position the craft in a specific, stable orbit? Either way it's amazing we can do things like this in such a remote location where the signals take ten minutes to get back and forth.
Here's a question though: if radio waves -like all electro-magnetic waves- are supposed to move at the speed of light, shouldn't it take less than 10 minutes for a signal to travel to/from Mars, since it takes only 8 for light from the sun to reach us? [DOH, just realized the answer.... Mars can still be further away than the sun depending on the position of its and our orbit, relative to the sun E ........ Sun ........ M rather than E ... M ..... Sun right?] ...into the light of a dark black night. Last edited by Moogs : 2006-03-11 at 09:25. |
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What are they thinking? Don't they know that Hell Knights and Imp's and other Hellspawn will surely destroy any craft that they send there? *sigh*, I guess they'll just have to learn from their mistakes.
On the viewing screens at NASA, they'll see this giant clawed hand come toward the camera, and then it will all go black. |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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I think you mean the Strogg. Seriously though, don't muddle excellent space exploration threads with bad movie / video game references. It's an unspoken rule here at Aldo Central.
...into the light of a dark black night. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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IIRC, the overall mission physics, and the six month aerobraking in gradually decreasing orbits is nicely detailed in this simple animation linked to the BBC Story of MRO arrival...
They could do a mission without aerobraking, but it would require a boatload more fuel on board the spacecraft (which would mean sacrificing science payload). This type of gradual orbital adjustment by skimming the upper atmosphere on each orbit is designed for maximum efficiency. And yes... Mars is the 4th planet, so it can be farther from us than the Sun, depending on orbital mechanics and when you're talking about. |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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Thanks Burb, now I'm going to have another marathon session of Penguin Physics after seeing the BBC animation.
questions spring to mind... Did the orbiter take photos while executing the insertion? What are the chances that the robot could still nose-in on return passes? |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Well technically, *any* planet could be further from us, if its orbit takes it around the other side of the sun relative to where we are, right? So as it starts to move around the part of the sun we're facing, it gets further and further away (more than 93,000,000 miles) until it is behind the sun (at which point I suppose radio contact would be impossible). Also, all the planets are not on precisely the same orbital plane, are they?
...into the light of a dark black night. |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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Uh oh. Looks like one of Spirit's wheels has seized up:
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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Yeah, that wheel has been sticking for about 6 months... the solution up until now has been to drive in 'reverse' and drag the wheel, then spin the rover in place for the major instrument package to point at the 'forward' stuff. Redundancy is good.
I'm surprised to hear they've obliterated the grinder teeth and are just down to brushes on the Rock Abrasion Tool... them's some tough martian rocks. The solar panel dust buildup issue was predicted to cause the early doom of the rovers before launch... fortunately, both rovers have benefitted from serendipitous dust devils which have seemingly blown them clean. Here's hoping the same trick will increase power again in future. Hibernating with optimal panels-facing-sun worked last year, so I'm not pessimistic, but if you read some of the coverage, Squyres is giving the press some pretty drastic sounding sound bites. |
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Environmental Bloodhound
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Back to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:
Things are looking good so far- First high resolution images from the HiRISE camera. |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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Is Earth's Moon even mapped in such detail? So it goes. |
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