You'll want to re-start EotSS later ( about 8.30pm Pacific - just when the broadcast starts ) - as we'll have adjusted for the updated C/A time.

And that flare was on the Earth side of the sun ...and using EotSS (sorry to plug it so much ) you can see Stardust is on the other side of the Solar System.

Actually - any changes right now would give it zero chance of making it onto Curiosity.

I've heard that someone might be demoing it live, twice, on the first NASA TV broadcast tomorrow evening, and that there might be a frickin great big camera on top of his console staring him in the face.

(and if I do say so myself, the C/A looks really awesome in EotSS - took some work by a very very clever programmer called Jon to get the camera to flip from periscope to off periscope. He's actually programmed the spacecraft to do faux-auto-nav based on the provided trajecgories for Stardust and Tempel 1. Plus - our 3D guy, haivng produced a BEAUTIFUL Stardust spacecraft, went and created a brailliant Tempel 1 complete with stuff seen by Deep Impact ( grey ) stuff not seen ( blue ) and the hoped-for crater ( red target )

If I do say so myself, it's fairly cool.

Oh and don't - whatever you do - look at the tutorials page.

If it fails - we end up with what's onboard the spacecraft now

Moonrise is in competition with an NEO and a Venus mission for the next New Frontiers mission...so it's far far far from a done deal.

Indeed - such an event occurred just before ingress to Victoria...with Whr's down to <100. And then once the skies cleared it just carried on.

That's the mechanism used to put the RTG onto the rover - There is an engineering model RTG that I presume they're installing right now, to add some fidelity to the thermal-vac testing that's coming up soon. The radiators themselves have been there for a long time already.

Opportunity, being more equatorial than Spirit, has never needed a tilt during winter.

They have made a simulated light curve based on DI data, and have an actual light curve based on Hubble imagery. From that - there is a correlation, but also there's another correlation at 180 deg from that, just not quite as strong.

Thus - they targetted to get the nucleus on approach ( http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May07/stardust-NExT.jpg ) but it's not certain that they'll see it. It's not quite 50/50 - probably slightly better odds than that.

Of course, the comet may have changed so much over the past 5 years that we can't even tell if we're looking at the same side or not

A Stardust NExT 'Live' module will be on Eyes on the Solar System before Monday night ( http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes ) including a nucleus shape file with a map showing the expected crater, and the un-seen terrain. Yours truly will be demoing it during the first of the NASA TV broadcasts from JPL on the night of the flyby

OMG It's like you're ACTUALLY THERE.

I didn't get that impression at all. Meh.

So your point of post 178 was.....?

No more worrying than, say, the rocker bogie of MER. Passive mechanical linkages are probably not at significant risk. Motors / Flex-Cables etc...those are the troublesome parts.

Read the top of the page
http://www.apollosaturn.com/modeling/dwsatv.htm

"Six years of research has finally paid off for space modelers: David Weeks has brought forth a ten sheet set of drawings detailing the exterior and interior of the most powerful operational launch vehicle ever produced."

That research had to take place because the drawings were simply not available. They exist, because something free doesn't.

The full set is available here : http://realspacemodels.com/html/satv.htm

It's taken someone a lot of time and effort to prepare the ones you linked to - hence the fact that you can buy them. The resources to make them are out there.

If you're expecting a complete library of CAD drawings just to be sat there waiting for you, you're going to be disappointed. You're going to have to do some work yourself on this.

Also good is - http://www.ninfinger.org/models/vault.html

Seconded. I saw the presentations as well and none of the sites were marked out as making the engineers 'leery' - indeed they were described as the four safest landing sites in the history of Mars exploration.

Those low G forces were unexpectedly at the soft end of a bell curve that extended to 40G. You have to design with the 40G in mind, because next time you might not be so lucky on the combined performance of chute / airbags / radar / surface / wind etc.

The MSL landing technique reduces the size of that bell-curve drastically.

Ahhh - sorry - that was a bit missleading though - would have been better to just reply to put the question before the answer

ZLD - he gave you the answer before you even asked. Please read and think before posting.

I would ask all contributors to this thread to re-read the forum guidelines : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=boardrules : in particular regarding Exobiology and SETI.

A few private messages have had to be sent as several posts or bumping up against, or breaking specific rules. Please think before posting. If you feel induced to ask if something fits within the rules, it almost certainly doesn't.

Go and read the meeting presentations and find out for yourself.

All four are safe enough, that is for sure.

As for which is most scientifically interesting....ask four scientists and you'll get four totally different answers. There is no 'right' landing site.

They're all scientifically rich, they're all safe for landing.

You should start by reading the presentations to the 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop
http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...op/program.html

Well, tough. You have to be patient. Fact.

Let's see if they apply for one, and if their plan is fiscally responsible, and then they might get one.

It's too premature to be talking about it now.