Opportunity has landed

Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:11:06 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

....Still rolling, very slowly. All signs are good.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

Neil Gerace wrote on Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:11:06 +0800:
:NG Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

Rolling along like the Energizer rabbit, it seems.

Jim.

Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/

wrote:

Neil Gerace wrote on Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:11:06 +0800:
:NG Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

Rolling along like the Energizer rabbit, it seems.

The inflatable landing bags seemed pretty wild-man crazy when they first
tried them on Pathfinder...but they've worked 3 for 3 now, and we have
an apparently quite reliable means of putting payloads on the surface of
Mars- combined with the probe design and whole landing technique, we now
have a great "Basic Bus" ability to get payloads to the Martian surface
with reliability...now if _I_ were deciding how things go from here...we
freeze the design for the landers, add different payloads, and go with
the Delta IIs for a while, then start stacking them in multiples on
Delta IV's or Atlas V's...lets put down a _whole gridwork_ of probes on
Mars; either using RTGs or trainable solar panels, and have a look at
this place say ten or twenty degrees of latitude by longitude at a time!
And MAKE SURE that that what's-his-name in the American flag shirt and
broom takes good care of them, and brings both to all future landings.
I'm not superstitious ...but I do remember Apollo 13...

Bouncing off the walls, and Martian regolith...
Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:


wrote:

Neil Gerace wrote on Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:11:06
+0800:
:NG Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

Rolling along like the Energizer rabbit, it seems.

The inflatable landing bags seemed pretty wild-man crazy when they first
tried them on Pathfinder...but they've worked 3 for 3 now, and we have
an apparently quite reliable means of putting payloads on the surface of
Mars- combined with the probe design and whole landing technique, we now
have a great "Basic Bus" ability to get payloads to the Martian surface
with reliability...now if _I_ were deciding how things go from here...we
freeze the design for the landers,

Well, at some point in the near future, precision landing may be
needed - to follow up on previous discoveries, go to very specific
sites, etc. Unless they either get very much more competent rovers, that
means that it will have to be powered landers with high-accuracy
terminal guidance.

Bear in mind that airbags are 3/3 and powered descent is 2/3, and
the one failure appears to have been imminently fixable. Either way
would appear to work just fine - it's just a matter of getting the
details right.

Brett

In article ,
says...

Bear in mind that airbags are 3/3 and powered descent is 2/3, and
the one failure appears to have been imminently fixable. Either way
would appear to work just fine - it's just a matter of getting the
details right.

If you include lunar landings, powered descent has quite an excellent
track record. And fairly precise landing capability, even without
lunar GPS.

Diane

"Diane Wilson" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
says...

Bear in mind that airbags are 3/3 and powered descent is 2/3, and
the one failure appears to have been imminently fixable. Either way
would appear to work just fine - it's just a matter of getting the
details right.

If you include lunar landings, powered descent has quite an excellent
track record. And fairly precise landing capability, even without
lunar GPS.

Well, if we include landings in a place where airbags can't be used to
support the argument in favour of powered descent, then we can include
powered descent by aircraft on Earth, where it is already the method of
choice.

Hell of a ride for a human crew! :-)

I can just see the carnival attractions now....

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:36:55 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

Well, if we include landings in a place where airbags can't be used to
support the argument in favour of powered descent, then we can include
powered descent by aircraft on Earth, where it is already the method of
choice.

....Yeah, well, I'd still prefer it if airliners were equipped with
airbags, thank you.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
Pat Flannery writes:


wrote:

Neil Gerace wrote on Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:11:06 +0800:
:NG Strong signal, still rolling around on the surface though

Rolling along like the Energizer rabbit, it seems.

The inflatable landing bags seemed pretty wild-man crazy when they first
tried them on Pathfinder...but they've worked 3 for 3 now, and we have
an apparently quite reliable means of putting payloads on the surface of
Mars- combined with the probe design and whole landing technique, we now
have a great "Basic Bus" ability to get payloads to the Martian surface
with reliability...now if _I_ were deciding how things go from here...we
freeze the design for the landers, add different payloads, and go with
the Delta IIs for a while, then start stacking them in multiples on
Delta IV's or Atlas V's...lets put down a _whole gridwork_ of probes on
Mars; either using RTGs or trainable solar panels, and have a look at
this place say ten or twenty degrees of latitude by longitude at a time!
And MAKE SURE that that what's-his-name in the American flag shirt and
broom takes good care of them, and brings both to all future landings.
I'm not superstitious ...but I do remember Apollo 13...

Airbags are 3 for 4, aren't thay, I seem to recall that Beagle 2 was
an airbagger. And we don't know just when/where it failed, yet.

Otherwise, it seems like an Idea.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster