I agree with Dan here.

We have two, independent rebuttals of this story. One via JPL, Veronica and the Twitter page, the second by Peter, in an interview with Space.com

For whatever reason, Craig has heard something that appears to not be entirely true. Anyone claiming there is something more, something being hidden, is stepping into the realm of conspiracy and thus is in breach of forum rules. This thread can continue, but that line of discussion is not up for debate.

That's the wierd thing - Erebus (and Terra Nova, adjacent and overlapping) are both names - but are the only large craters to the NNW.

If, perhaps, they meant to say WNW, then there's a large eroded crater at that sort of range.

Doug

Sounds like it'll be a fairly controlled release. I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'd say they've covered it in the most appropriate way to be honest.

Yeah - the heatshield would have been quite a lot earlier, and I doubt it would have been felt by the lander.

Maybe something to do with the prop system - not the He vent, but blow down of whatever was left in the engines perhaps.

I don't think it's a bounce - as that would have registered as the free-fall accel for a moment, which would be at a negative g number, as seen in-between the engine throttle pattern

IN

http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sess...8&s_id=6020

And Ralph is 5 after me, in the next session http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sess...8&s_id=6021

Now that would be interesting. Ditto the exact moment that HiRISE image swathed past Phoenix. From that, we can see how long between heatshield-sep and the image, thus how far the heatshield was away from the lander tells us how much more quickly is was falling.

If we just presume a flat surface - we can then surely extrapolate between these and figure out a rough trajectory for the heatshield. We have a trajectory for the lander, and we know the mass of the lander comapred to the backshell and chute, so we can thus estimate the speed at which the backshell landed - and extrapolat a trajectory for it as well


And bingo - we have all three, animated.

I've got a balloon to fly this w'end, and animations of a different sort to do - but if someone can do large images that show, to scale, the above-projection of these trajectories, the side projection of them, and the times - I could knock something quite simple up rather quickly - with the HiRISE image as a back-drop


Although " cette page du forum américain Unmannedspaceflight," isn't quite right. UMSF est un forum Britannique

Doug

There are quite a few here - http://safesimplesoon.com/

And I have explicitly heard Squyres say they're had no intention of getting stuck and always intended to get in - do science - and get out.

That's what pulse-throttling will do for you

Doug

A few close-ups of the accel during deployments etc.

Chute deploy, leg deploy, lander seperation, and touchdown.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Followed by Ice Melted.



I'll get my coat.

Just for testing, I did a walk-around with the GPS logger on 10s intervals yesterday

Should drop straight into Google Earth. It starts ratty and all over the place - but once it's had a few mins to get a proper log once we left the house, it's an accurate trace of a walk around the block - no point more than about 2m out.

It'll work till about 40kft - and then hopefully log back on again on the way down. in case of a failure of the flight computer - we can extrapolate the ascent, extrapolate the descent, and where they cross is a rough estimate of apogee

Doug

Following on from the high altitude balloon thread, I thought it made sense to make a new thread for (hopefully) next weekends launch of HAPS 1 ( http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/d...ons:haps:haps-1 )

Possibly - and it's only possibly - we'll have uStream from the launch site, and live tracking, if we can, during some/all/none of the flight. More details as and when I have them.

Camera and GPS have their own housing now - reasonably pleased with it - need to tidy it up a bit - but the camera is rigid inside, the gps sits on top - but the battery pack is tucked away.

I'm fairly sure that I'll go with the wide-angle lens to stick on the front of the camera - I'll regret it after the flight if I don't. I'll do back to back tests on image quality, however, to make sure it isn't screwing everything.

We'll be using the chute I bought some time ago with the intention of doing my own project...so it wasn't wasted

Doug

0040UT now.

Actually

SSI Image of LIDAR beam..


10 commanded, but 0 received. The ones we've now seen were from a different sol

Doug

What, brief the worlds second dullest scotsman ( after Andy Murray ). I'd rather pull my own teeth

Having issues with the expanding foam I use to insulate the camera - might take some work. We'll get there.

Doug

Next weekend, if everything goes well, a 15x30cm carbon deck will fly onboard HAPS-1 -http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:haps:haps-1

One end of the deck will be the flight radio, the other is my responsibility, a single camera (Powershot A560 ), stand alone GPS logger (to 18km), and a small wide angle mirror so the camera can see the payload, the chute and the envelope above.

Still working on a hacked firmware for the A560 - but the intention is every minute will include 15s of video, and then 5-10 stills in fairly quick succession - with the hope that the rotation of the balloon will give us some mosaics out of each section.

More details, some photos etc, later in the week.

One thing's for sure - it's going to be an exciting month!

You're not alone. Somehow, the fact that I don't think Craig picked the best time or place to ask Pete what the story was, and the fact that we are now talking about the story now it has broken, are contradictory.

But hey - getting flamed by Cowing twice - that's got to be something worth feeling smug about.

It can't be family-friendly tea-time viewing without

a) Bruce Forsyth
Two families attempting to use a potters wheel and/or ice a cake.

FACT



(Or Bullseye)

I hate it. Helen likes it. No one else at work watches it. I find it too serious to be funny, but not serious enough to take itself seriously - it just grates horribly in my mind. I saw the last 30 minutes of the end of this recent series and thought "That...was crap". It was just childish, self interested. The script was dreadfully weak, the direction inappropriately indulgent, and the whole thing was felt like a spoof of itself. What's most tragic is that David Tennant is one of the greatest acting talents of his generation, and he's pouring it all away on what, to be honest, th kindest thing I can say is 'well, kids seem to like it'. Tennant, wasted. Tate, dreadful - like watching a character they rejected from her comedy show.

Phil Plait was getting so excited about he when he was in the UK, thought it was the best thing on TV bar none - and I know that you Stu, are mad for the good Dr.

But really - I don't get it. It's like Cloverfield - which I left thinking 'that was the worst 90 minutes of cinema in modern history' and yet most people loved. I just don't see the attraction.

In private, after the press conf or by telephone. Not by raising a nightmare of almost certainly inappropriate speculation and hyperbole by being quite so smug and veiled. I like Craig, I like his articles, and I like the fact he'll take creations by people here and publish them. But I really don't like the way he's handled this. If nothing else, he's given us an admin headache.