Solar power hobbles another spacecraft? (The comet lander crippled)

On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:01:20 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:25:54 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:


Believe it or not, the scientists and engineers who design these
missions know what they're doing.

We can tell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...nder-hop-comet

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:21:24 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:01:20 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:25:54 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:


Believe it or not, the scientists and engineers who design these
missions know what they're doing.

We can tell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...nder-hop-comet

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

Multiple failures. The anchors failed. They didn't account for the landing conditions in conjunction with solar panel illumination.

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 5:59:44 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:18:21 PM UTC-5, RichA wrote:


You can use other isotopes. Strontium, Polonium, Americium. The Russians used
$10M worth or Polonium to kill that dissident, they could have spared some.

OK then, what would a Po RTG look like for a 10-year mission?

Outstanding characteristics.

Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.7 years, reasonable power density of 0.54 kilowatts per kilogram

On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 19:58:26 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

Multiple failures. The anchors failed. They didn't account for the landing conditions in conjunction with solar panel illumination.

Like I said, you have no understanding of engineering. The probe was a
resounding success.

On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 19:58:26 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote this crap:

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:21:24 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:01:20 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:25:54 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:


Believe it or not, the scientists and engineers who design these
missions know what they're doing.

We can tell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...nder-hop-comet

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

Multiple failures. The anchors failed. They didn't account for
the landing conditions in conjunction with solar panel illumination.

They needed more cowbell.


This signature is now the ultimate
power in the universe

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:21:24 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:01:20 -0800 (PST), wsnell01
wrote:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:25:54 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:


Believe it or not, the scientists and engineers who design these
missions know what they're doing.

We can tell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...nder-hop-comet

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

The only occurrence of "engineer" in the article was in reference to solar panels. "Engineering failure" was not mentioned explicitly in the article. However, I was primarily interested in the landing/anchoring system, which apparently did NOT work as expected (or as "engineered.")

If you want to argue about solar panels versus RTGs then argue with Rich, not me.

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 11:01:49 PM UTC-5, RichA wrote:
On Saturday, November 15, 2014 5:59:44 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:18:21 PM UTC-5, RichA wrote:


You can use other isotopes. Strontium, Polonium, Americium. The Russians used
$10M worth or Polonium to kill that dissident, they could have spared some.

OK then, what would a Po RTG look like for a 10-year mission?

Outstanding characteristics.

Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.7 years, reasonable power density of 0.54 kilowatts per kilogram

I was asking about Po not Pu.

On Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:58:28 PM UTC-5, RichA wrote:
On Saturday, November 15, 2014 10:21:24 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:01:20 -0800 (PST), wsnell01 wrote:

On Friday, November 14, 2014 7:25:54 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:


Believe it or not, the scientists and engineers who design these
missions know what they're doing.

We can tell:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...nder-hop-comet

You think that represents an engineering failure? That merely shows
how little you understand about engineering.

Multiple failures. The anchors failed. They didn't account for the landing conditions in conjunction with solar panel illumination.

The problem that needs to be solved involves the landing. Until then, there is little sense in wasting RTGs on a comet probe, and maybe not even then.

On 21/11/2014 14:21, wrote:

The only occurrence of "engineer" in the article was in reference to solar panels. "Engineering failure" was not mentioned explicitly in the article. However, I was primarily interested in the landing/anchoring system, which apparently did NOT work as expected (or as "engineered.")

That appears to be because the ground was a heck of a lot tougher than
they had ever expected. They broke the sampling hammer on it too.

They were expecting a comet to be a dirty snowball and found a hard
tough ice based engineering composite material instead. I doubt if
anyone expected the comet surface to look brittle angular fractured like
a terrestrial slate quarry before the lander actually landed.

It will be interesting to see if the lander will awaken when the sun
gets brighter and there is coma to scatter sunlight into the crevasse
where it is presently lodged. We can but hope...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014 06:21:24 -0800 (PST), wrote:

The only occurrence of "engineer" in the article was in reference to solar panels. "Engineering failure" was not mentioned explicitly in the article. However, I was primarily interested in the landing/anchoring system, which apparently did NOT work as expected (or as "engineered.")

I'm talking about the landing system, which does not represent an
engineering failure. My point was simply that there's a difference
between and engineering failure and something not working as hoped.