Curiosity

So the news item says 100 days to the landing of a SUV sized rover on Mars.
One assumes that the eventual aim is to send men there, but in the meantime,
I've been reading about the weird way this is supposed to land. It may be
just me, but considering the track record of lannding on the planet in
general, it does seem prone to failures escpecially near the actual
landing.

I hope not, but I wonder what odds the bookies would put on it working.
Brian

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On 30/04/2012 18:42, Brian Gaff wrote:
So the news item says 100 days to the landing of a SUV sized rover on Mars.
One assumes that the eventual aim is to send men there, but in the meantime,
I've been reading about the weird way this is supposed to land. It may be
just me, but considering the track record of lannding on the planet in
general, it does seem prone to failures escpecially near the actual
landing.

I hope not, but I wonder what odds the bookies would put on it working.
Brian


Scientifically, the odds increase with every successful landing, as
more atmospheric landing data is sent back and gives us more info
about the atmosphere of Mars. So, hopefully Entry,Descent & Landing
in following missions becomes safer.

Actually, I'm guessing the landing on this mission will be the
safest of any mission yet - as it's powered & controlled. Hazards,
such as large boulders or small shallow craters would have killed
the landing of the air-bag missions - that's what a landing engineer
said at JPL.
Can't remember how well the hazard avoidance mechanism worked on
the Phoenix lander though.

Anyway, 100 days?! Bring it on, a Mars landing always gets my
blood racing with excitement.


--
T

Yes, well I remember the European Beagle 2 fiasco, and the Polar lander, but
in thos cases I think they basically know what and why things went wrong,
though seem to have never found any sign of either of them.
Brian

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"Hg" wrote in message ...
On 30/04/2012 18:42, Brian Gaff wrote:
So the news item says 100 days to the landing of a SUV sized rover on
Mars.
One assumes that the eventual aim is to send men there, but in the
meantime,
I've been reading about the weird way this is supposed to land. It may be
just me, but considering the track record of lannding on the planet in
general, it does seem prone to failures escpecially near the actual
landing.

I hope not, but I wonder what odds the bookies would put on it working.
Brian


Scientifically, the odds increase with every successful landing, as
more atmospheric landing data is sent back and gives us more info
about the atmosphere of Mars. So, hopefully Entry,Descent & Landing
in following missions becomes safer.

Actually, I'm guessing the landing on this mission will be the
safest of any mission yet - as it's powered & controlled. Hazards,
such as large boulders or small shallow craters would have killed
the landing of the air-bag missions - that's what a landing engineer
said at JPL.
Can't remember how well the hazard avoidance mechanism worked on
the Phoenix lander though.

Anyway, 100 days?! Bring it on, a Mars landing always gets my
blood racing with excitement.


--
T

On Tue, 1 May 2012 05:46:12 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

Yes, well I remember the European Beagle 2 fiasco, and the Polar lander, but
in thos cases I think they basically know what and why things went wrong,
though seem to have never found any sign of either of them.

I don't think they ever narrowed it down to which of the myriad
possible things actually killed Beagle 2.

On May 1, 11:33*am, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 1 May 2012 05:46:12 +0100, "Brian Gaff"

wrote:
Yes, well I remember the European Beagle 2 fiasco, and the Polar lander, but
in thos cases I think they basically know what and why things went wrong,
though seem to have never found any sign of either of them.

I don't think they ever narrowed it down to which of the myriad
possible things actually killed Beagle 2.

I think the sky crane s overly complex and going to be a big pricey
failure

In article dce9f021-c6ef-4045-8fa8-
, says...

On May 1, 11:33*am, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 1 May 2012 05:46:12 +0100, "Brian Gaff"

wrote:
Yes, well I remember the European Beagle 2 fiasco, and the Polar lander, but
in thos cases I think they basically know what and why things went wrong,
though seem to have never found any sign of either of them.

I don't think they ever narrowed it down to which of the myriad
possible things actually killed Beagle 2.

I think the sky crane s overly complex and going to be a big pricey
failure

Unfortunately, landing on Mars isn't as easy as one would think. The
thin atmosphere is as much of a hindrance as it is helpful. It's just
not thick enough that you can safely land on parachutes alone.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message ...

There's been a lot of discussion here in the past on the complexity of the
"sky-crane" plan.

It is a bit daunting, but honestly, trying to land something that big on
Mars in one piece w/o the benefit of a nice think atmosphere is going to be
daunting no matter what you do.

Personally, I'd give it better than 50/50 odds.




So the news item says 100 days to the landing of a SUV sized rover on Mars.
One assumes that the eventual aim is to send men there, but in the
meantime, I've been reading about the weird way this is supposed to land.
It may be just me, but considering the track record of lannding on the
planet in general, it does seem prone to failures escpecially near the
actual landing.

I hope not, but I wonder what odds the bookies would put on it working.
Brian


--
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