How to bring a 3.3 tonne laboratory from 21,240km/h to zero in 7 minutes...

[mshagg]

Originally Posted by tornado33

spectacular

Spectacular is indeed the word. Awesome work, tornado!

[MR CHILLED]

"NASA probe to drill into Mars surface"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-2...urface/4211792

[Veefy]

Originally Posted by MR CHILLED

"NASA probe to drill into Mars surface"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-2...urface/4211792

Meh, the Titan project sounded way cooler.

[Foliage]

Originally Posted by Veefy

Meh, the Titan project sounded way cooler.

Probably far more costly and likely to fail though.

[tornado33]

Thamks all re the descent video.
Ive uploaded a new version at 5 FPS. According to JPL the MARDI camera actually took images at around 5 FPS so this is now approximate to the actual speed of the descent, less any missing frames there may be. The shaking is a bit of a nuisance but thats from the probe swinging around under parachute. It actually fired thrusters to stop this swinging becoming more severe during the descent.
Enjoy.
Cheers.

[antipody]

Originally Posted by tornado33

Enjoy.

Great job tornado33 (but where's the audio track?)

Seems quite a leisurely parachute down in real time and a very gentle touchdown.

[kombiman]

Originally Posted by antipody

Great job tornado33 (but where's the audio track?)

Seems quite a leisurely parachute down in real time and a very gentle touchdown.

Needs some Juno Reactor!

[Veefy]

2.5 billion dollars just so NASA guys can do some circlework

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-2...8?WT.svl=news3

[chainbolt]

Mars rover passes driving test, looks to hit road

The first test drive around the pebbly Martian crater where it landed was just that -- a test drive. The rover edged forward about 15 feet, rotated to a right angle and reversed a short distance, leaving tracks in the rust-tinged soil.

Looks good!

[Foliage]

For those that were curious about the programming language they use, they use C!

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh....php?t=1047072

read more here.

edit: what happens when you make a cock up
http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/t...tem?_s=PM:TECH

[MR CHILLED]

'NASA beams 'interplanetary voicemail' from Mars"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-2...?section=world

NASA beamed the first human voice ever heard from another planet back to Earth today, predicting a manned mission to Mars in a message transmitted from the surface of the Red Planet.

In the audio message, radioed to the Mars rover and then broadcast back to Earth by the Curiosity rover, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said a manned mission to Mars could happen "in the not too distant future."

...

[chainbolt]

Does NASA's Curiosity Rover Have the Smarts to Find Life on Mars?

http://www.space.com/17306-mars-rove...fe-search.html

This high-res mosaic of 20 images is the first clear self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on the Red Planet.

NASA's now on-duty Mars rover, Curiosity, is on the hunt to judge whether the Red Planet ever had an environment capable of supporting microbial life.

The rover's above-the-wheels intellect is designed to mull over the question of Mars' habitability. However, Curiosity will likely stop short of solving the ultimate question: Has there ever been life on Mars?

The $2.5 billion robotic explorer, the centerpiece of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, landed on the Red Planet Aug. 5 (PDT), beginning a two-year trek around Mars' Gale Crater. In determining whether Mars is or ever was habitable to life, Curiosity should give scientists a major boost toward understanding whether life has ever existed there, and where to look for it in the future.

It's not a new inquiry, but a question that has dogged the "search for life" community for decades.

Turning point

"In my opinion the turning point in the search for life on Mars would be if Curiosity finds organics," said Alfonso Davila, senior research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. He is a principal investigator at the Carl Sagan Center for the Search of Life in the Universe. [Photos from Curiosity's First Drive on Mars]

Davila told SPACE.com that if or when Curiosity establishes that it has the capability to detect organics near the surface, "then the focus should turn to understanding the nature and the origin of those organics, and to establish whether they are linked to life."

While Curiosity might provide some clues, Davila said scientists would likely need to send a new set of instruments specifically selected to find "biomarkers." A biomarker can be any kind of molecule indicating the existence, past or present, of living organisms.

"One option would be to go back to Gale Crater, although my guess is that whatever organics might be there are very ancient and degraded, or non-biogenic — for example, delivered by meteorites," Davila said.

Another choice would be to send those instruments to a site where organics should be better preserved and for longer periods of time, Davila added, "such as the ground ice at higher latitudes. We know that similar ground ice on Earth preserves organics and even whole cells for millions of years."

If Curiosity does not find organics, Davila said: "This would strongly suggest that neither the dry soils nor the ancient sediments are good places to preserve organics. We still would have the alternative of searching for them in the ground ice, and perhaps in other substrates such as surface evaporates."

[MR CHILLED]

Just awesome : )

"Postcards from Mars show rover's key science targets"

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...828-24y4k.html

NASA has shown off the first high-resolution, colour portrait images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life on the Red Planet.

The stunning images, unveiled on Monday, reveal distinct tiers near the base of the five-kilometre-tall mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6 to begin its two-year mission.

.....

[tornado33]

Originally Posted by MR CHILLED

Just awesome : )

"Postcards from Mars show rover's key science targets"

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...828-24y4k.html

Yep some of those are pics with the 100mm mastcam. The other mastcam has a 34mm lens
http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/Mastcam/

Check out this 100mm shot
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/...NIMAGE-br2.jpg
Absolutely gorgeous. More here
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multime.../?ImageID=4565
Imagine a 360 deg. panorama with the 100mm, it would take a while to do and would be an enormous download to Earth though but would be a fantastic image.

[MR CHILLED]

"NASA's Mars probe heads for Glenelg - on the red planet"

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/s...-1226460684860

NASA'S Mars rover soon will be heading to Glenelg.

That's Glenelg on the red planet - not Glenelg the South Australian seaside suburb.

NASA has decided to name its first Mars destination "Glenelg" - a site 400m away from the spot where the Curiosity rover successfully landed earlier this month - and is set to reach it some time in September.

....