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We're on Mars!
Aug. 6th, 2012 08:38 amWell, we've already been on Mars for 8 years, but we landed this large rover last night at 10:31 PDT. Actually, even that's not quite true: we landed at 10:17 & found out how we did 14 minutes later b/c of the distance between Mars & Earth.
Here's a link to a story from NBC.
But this rover has a lab & can take things off the surrounding rocks that it can analyze.
It landed in Gale crater; they're hoping to get a sense of the planet's geological past that way (I always forget - no erosion except for sand & dirt so this stuff can hang around).
Because of its size (1 ton), it couldn't land with the airbags, or land with feet. So it had this crazy landing sequence:
1.) get rid of the cruise stage (the thing that got it from Earth)
2.) descent into the atmosphere
3.) release of the atmospheric balloon (while going Mach 2 <--yeah, I know that it seems silly to use the term Mach - the speed of sound in a different atmosphere - but that's what the Jet Propulsion Laboratory kept saying)
4.) release of the heat shield
5.) then dropping of the rover from the top of the lander; the lander was attached to the rover by 20 m cables & it was suspended from the top as it was slowly lowered to the surface.
But the satellite picked it up, signals came back and, damn, 2 photos, too.
Every time I heard about this plan, I thought that it was crazy. Any point on that landing sequence that didn't work would mean a total failure.
There was a point where we were watching all of the people at the JPL, at their computers & monitors in those rows like we've all seen in old photos & movies of space missions. I realized, I'd never seen so many doctors in one place! Every person I could see was (almost likely) a Ph.D.
Here's a link to a story from NBC.
But this rover has a lab & can take things off the surrounding rocks that it can analyze.
It landed in Gale crater; they're hoping to get a sense of the planet's geological past that way (I always forget - no erosion except for sand & dirt so this stuff can hang around).
Because of its size (1 ton), it couldn't land with the airbags, or land with feet. So it had this crazy landing sequence:
1.) get rid of the cruise stage (the thing that got it from Earth)
2.) descent into the atmosphere
3.) release of the atmospheric balloon (while going Mach 2 <--yeah, I know that it seems silly to use the term Mach - the speed of sound in a different atmosphere - but that's what the Jet Propulsion Laboratory kept saying)
4.) release of the heat shield
5.) then dropping of the rover from the top of the lander; the lander was attached to the rover by 20 m cables & it was suspended from the top as it was slowly lowered to the surface.
Here's a story describing the landing in more detail.Then it had to broadcast what it was seeing as a "hey, I made it" signal. It was sending the signals to a satellite that was going to be disappearing over the horizon soon afterward. Then, the satellite would send the information to Earth. We kept being told that it was possible that we didn't get anything back - it could be adjusting, etc., and miss the satellite above before it went over the horizon. In that case, we'd have to wait 3 days, I think (?) until it started sending back its own signals.
But the satellite picked it up, signals came back and, damn, 2 photos, too.
Every time I heard about this plan, I thought that it was crazy. Any point on that landing sequence that didn't work would mean a total failure.
There was a point where we were watching all of the people at the JPL, at their computers & monitors in those rows like we've all seen in old photos & movies of space missions. I realized, I'd never seen so many doctors in one place! Every person I could see was (almost likely) a Ph.D.
