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Mars Curiosity Rover... to land 10:31 pm 8/5/2012

Apollo's lunar orbit rendezvous also sounded crazy when they first came up with it.

Is there anything in space exploration that didn't sound crazy?
 
"Get yo arse to Mars"

How fitting with the new "Total Recall" movie out


At least the biggest hurdle is over.
 
673733main_PIA15978-43_428-321.jpg
 
The parachute photograph is truly the most unique photograph in existence.

There are only a few recognizable third-person shots of man-made objects on other planets: The photos of the Sojourner rover, the photos of the the Spirit and Opportunity landing gear, and of their heat shields. And that's it.

And out of those, only the Sojourner rover was caught in action. This is the only photograph from a distance, from an unrelated spacecraft, of a lonely man-made object that's currently preoccupied with the most difficult task that Martian landers have undertaken.

A photo of the parachute in action? It gives me the goosebumps...
 
I don't know about you guys, but this was me pretty much the whole day:

http://xkcd.com/1091/

I got up early to watch the coverage, and you know what? It was totally worth it! Watching those engineers and technicians go wild when the probe landed totally got me caught in the moment too.

Congratulations to all the people who put this mission together! :) It was impressive enough that the landing went down smoothly, but to be getting images so quickly (in what, less than half a minute of landing, 2 images off already?), that's science and engineering right there.

I look forward to seeing the results of this mission as they come in.
 
I stayed up late to watch as well, and it was definitely worth it! Absolutely fantastic and amazing. Let the science begin!
 
Data Holmes said:
J. Allen said:
Yeah, I remember reading the landing sequence and my first thought was "they're going to do what?" :lol:
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Ok, J. I totally read the "they're going to do what" of your post in the delivery of Tim Robbins as Merlin in Top Gun when, during the final dogfight, Maverick tells him he's bringing the MiG in closer.

You will know what I'm laughing at if you know the scene I'm talking about. :guffaw:
Click to expand...

:lol:

Yeah, that sounds about right!

Seriously, though, I was on pins and needles during those last few seconds. :lol:
 
YellowSubmarine said:
The parachute photograph is truly the most unique photograph in existence.
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Except for the similar photo that MRO took of Phoenix as it was landing near the martian north pole in 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix_Lander_seen_from_MRO_during_EDL2.jpg

And the Mars Odyssey photo taken by the Mars Global Surveyor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mgs_odyssey.gif


A photo of the parachute in action? It gives me the goosebumps...
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That's true. It's cool that now our spacecraft can photograph each other in action.
 
Data Holmes said:
I'm always amazed at the ever increasing quality of images we get back from these things.
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I'm far more amazed about the current state of autonomous control of robots that made this even possible.. just a decade or so ago it would have been impossible to pull off such a landing without direct human control (or a vastly simpler approach).
 
FPAlpha said:
Data Holmes said:
I'm always amazed at the ever increasing quality of images we get back from these things.
Click to expand...

I'm far more amazed about the current state of autonomous control of robots that made this even possible.. just a decade or so ago it would have been impossible to pull off such a landing without direct human control (or a vastly simpler approach).
Click to expand...

Was it really, or was it a simple matter of no one seriously trying?
 
There's some individuals out there asking why we don't get real time video. It's not exactly easy having a reliable, high throughput, high bandwidth stream that supports standard definition video, much less HD video over such distances. Unless they're using some miraculous compression schemes I haven't heard of...

In any event, here's a description of the cameras on the rover:

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL, aka the Curiosity) has two mast cameras, as seen here. One has a fixed 34mm f/8 lens that covers a 15° field of view, covering 1200x1200 pixels on a 1600 by 1200 CCD. The other is a fixed 100mm f/10 lens, with a 5.1° field of view on an identical sensor. You can see some pre-launch images taken with them here.
These cameras won't start showing they're stuff until later this week. They'll transmit color images as they have Bayer Pattern Filter CCDs, and have adjustable filters to capture different wavelengths of light:
Each Mastcam camera head also has a filter wheel, so that images taken by looking through filters covering different, narrow visible and near-infrared wavelengths can be obtained. Filters for the 34 mm Mastcam are (in nanometers): 440, 525, 550, 675, 750, 865, 1034, and 440(neutral density). Filters for the 100 mm Mastcam are (in nanometers): 440, 525, 550, 800, 905, 935, 1035, and 880(neutral density). The neutral density filters are for viewing the Sun. Each filter wheel also includes a visually clear (actually infrared rejection coated) filter for nominal RGB (red, green, blue) imaging using the Bayer Pattern CCD.
​
The cameras can also capture 720p video, full 360° panoramas, and even use both lenses to capture 3D images. This information won't be broadcast home instantly as the files are pretty large for such a long trip — the Rover has 8GB of onboard storage, and will transmit thumbnails back first, so that NASA can request the images it really wants to see.
Click to expand...
 
Trekker4747 said:
Where are the pics?!
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It'll be a couple more days before they deploy the stereo camera boom and send along the high-resolution color shots. Right now, we're just seeing stuff from the lo-res collision-avoidance cameras. The latest is a picture of Mt. Sharp that looks like a bright something on a darker background. There just isn't much point to sending a lot of pictures until the boom deploys.


EDIT TO ADD:
Ninja'd by a duck. How humiliating.
 
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