Another pic of MSL with its new "neck and head"

http://twitpic.com/27xag9

Looking forward to the new MSL video. Dan Maas' video for Phoenix was awesome

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...elease_2010-239

Video Camera Will Show Mars Rover's Touchdown

July 19, 2010

A downward-pointing camera on the front-left side of NASA's Curiosity rover will give adventure fans worldwide an unprecedented sense of riding a spacecraft to a landing on Mars.

The Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, will start recording high-resolution video about two minutes before landing in August 2012. Initial frames will glimpse the heat shield falling away from beneath the rover, revealing a swath of Martian terrain below illuminated in afternoon sunlight. The first scenes will cover ground several kilometers (a few miles) across. Successive images will close in and cover a smaller area each second.

MSL now has her Remote Sensing Mast

Juno Armored Up to Go to Jupiter

With guidance from JPL and the principal investigator, engineers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems designed and built a special radiation vault made of titanium for a centralized electronics hub. While other materials exist that make good radiation blockers, engineers chose titanium because lead is too soft to withstand the vibrations of launch, and some other materials were too difficult to work with.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...elease_2010-230

http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

July 9, 2010 Updated
IKAROS: Acceleration by solar sail confirmed

The small solar power sail demonstrator "IKAROS," which successfully deployed its solar sail, was confirmed to accelerate by solar sail receiving solar pressure.

This proved that the IKAROS has generated the biggest acceleration through photon during interplanetary flight in history.

Safety reasons. The drivers are obviously the ones controlling the vehicle. They should call the shots. (Though this goes against what tharrison posted above. )

Much as how a landing site (for Phoenix, MER, MSL or whatever) that's proposed by the science team can be disapproved by the engineering team if the site is deemed too hazardous.

The wheels were installed onto Curiosity on June 28 and 29. Unless problems crop up during testing that would cause them to be removed again, the wheels are now permanently attached to the rover.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/msl20100701.html

New Dawn Journal is up

http://www.dawn-mission.org/mission/journal_06_27_10.asp

LightSail-1 Passes Critical Design Review

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects...g/20100625.html

DCAM1 images finally released

http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/ikaros_channel/bn009.html

A previous IKAROS blog stated that the DCAM batteries...at least the one for DCAM2...is designed to last 15 minutes

Hm. I thought DCAM1 was already jettisoned... I guess not

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/IKAROS-blog/?itemid=646

Since IKAROS is spinning at only 1.1 rpm, I would assume the deployment of DCAM1 will be much more stable than that of DCAM2...and that IKAROS will be better framed (much more centered) in the DCAM1 images this time around

Heh, that's what I meant. I worded it wrong

IKAROS' spin rate has decreased from 2.5 rpm to 1.1 rpm to allow better stability of the sail membrane as it gets tested for attitude control

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/IKAROS-blog/

IKAROS uses its thrusters to position the main spacecraft bus in a certain attitude...which in turn tugs on the tethers attached to the sail membrane and causes the membrane to be pulled and positioned into different angles. There's a computer animation of this towards the latter part of the video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_6HOqBkP2o...player_embedded

Naw, the cameras don't have attitude control... They're gonna drift off into deep space after being released from IKAROS. Check out the Youtube link below... The DCAM floats off in a spiral fashion after it is ejected from IKAROS...which would explain why the spacecraft is off-center in the image (which I'll provide below...despite Tom helpfully providing a link to the TPS blog )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_6HOqBkP2o...player_embedded

Darn it. For some odd reason my Google toolbar won't automatically translate the DCAM2 Twitter page

Looks like the first of two free-floating cameras (DCAM 2) will be deployed from IKAROS today

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/IKAROS-blog/?itemid=629

And the IKAROS Twitter avatar is happy again.

IKAROS has stopped crying...while Akatsuki has been smiling the whole time. Must have had a beef with his older brother.

Maybe it's getting sadder 'cause it knows that brother Hayabusa most likely doesn't have any samples inside its capsule. I kid.

I hope they deploy that free-floating camera soon. Totally looking forward to seeing IKAROS in all its kite-shaped beauty

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/IKAROS-blog/i....php?itemid=595

Spacecraft are usually sent to the Cape 3 months before launch...though in Spirit and Opportunity's case, they were delivered to Cape Canaveral 4-5 months before launch (January 2003, while Spirit launched in June and Opportunity launched in July of that year)

If MSL launches in November of 2011, then early summer going on the assumption above

NASA Dryden Hosts Radar Tests for Next Mars Landing

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-197

Engineers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are running diverse trials with a test version of the radar system that will enable NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission to put the Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface in August 2012.

One set of tests conducted over a desert lakebed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., in May 2010 used flights with a helicopter simulating specific descent paths anticipated for Martian sites.

All that needs to be done now is for IKAROS to deploy those two free-floating cameras and photograph the sail in all its beauty