It doesn't need to - and nor could it anyway -neither LCROSS or LRO are equipped with appropriate hardware to do that.

Yes -it's a short period of time. So what? If it works, it works. Get a couple of DSN's pointing at it, good data rates are planned they'll have a few months of operations practice before the impact anyway. I'm not concerned about it to be honst.

Doug

World Domination is pencilled in for 2011-2013 time frame. It needs TWO servers.

Doug

We have an IP address - I just got it. I'm not going to tell and of you it yet, because it doesn't do anything. But on the end of it, is a box, somewhere in LA, with our name on it, a lot of nice hardware in it, and it's paid for for 7 months. Going to unleash our freelance rack-guru on it later today. I'm hoping I'll have a picture of the actual server, just so people can see what the cash did ( and the geek in me has a fetish for servers anyway - it took a lot of restraint not to buy a full blade centre of ebay yesterday).


Kudos to Dan at WebNX for being so helpful and friendly, the guys at Webhostingtalk.com for the brilliant swathes of advice that are around, and the Invision customer boards for performance advice.

It's happening, it's actually happening.

I'll keep you all posted.

Doug

Update : Our new server is ordered.

It's a dual Opteron 254 machine, 4 Gb Ram, and a pair of 10k rpm SCSI 73Gb HDD's in a RAID 1 array. We think we've found a great deal, which means we're spending approx £100/month - so the cash raised so quickly by you ( the members of UMSF ) will keep us on that platform for 2 years. TWO YEARS. Amazing.

We're hiring the services of a freelance dedicated hosting admin guru for the initial setup to ensure we're in the right place for security, performance and reliability. Thereafter, Joe and I will dump a backup of UMSF onto it, test it out. We may ask a few members to visit it and test ( privately ) before we will pick a weekend and close this site - transfer the domain pointing - transfer the DB and attachments folder across (having already had the forum running on the new server) - and then turn it on again. That's the grand plan - it may change. If things go really well, it might be before the end of March, but realistically, it'll be early April, leaving a clear month of usage to iron out any higher usage issues that may crop up before Phoenix.

Doug

Ahh - so you HAVE seen the HRSC stuff then.


Doug

Good explanation - possibly the RAT brush contacting during MI work of the array as well, especially given the bent brush. That IDD-on-deck driving test was a LONG time ago now, and on the other side.

The clods sat on the deck are possibly blown off the IDD during the same procedure, or falling off the IDD having built up on the ledges and lenses up there, when it looks 'down'

Doug

****ing hell that's good. This community is lucky to have code monkeys like you

That's the whole point - we don't even know if there is any down there. It's by doing experiments like this that we can find out.

They're expecting to kick up perhaps 1,100 tons of regolith with the impact, and there's supposedly 6 billion tons of the (H2O) stuff down there. 0.000183 percent of the water, if it's there. Personally, I'm quite skeptical about it.

Doug

HiRISE has cleared that up quite a lot (greyscale, 100%)

Also attached - the Heatshield in IGB at 200%

They already have - indeed, I've seen Hubble solar cells at the National Space Centre (complete with micro meteor impacts )

Doug

Here's one example : http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/images/c...ain_99_96i1.jpg - big crack down the MLI.

You can see more cracks and gaps on the left here, near the ESA logo : http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images...109-328-026.jpg

You can see an MLI patch they mounted with string one servicing mission : http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images...103_731_051.jpg : there are cracks in the panels on the left as well I think.

The thermal cycling has made it very very brittle. It wouldn't surprise me if they ended up taking a fairly 'bare' Hubble out of the payload bay, and then a dozen bin-liners of broken MLI from under it on the payload bay floor. Lots of long words like embrttlement etc are here - http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT2001/5000/5480dever1.html

To be honest, if you look at some of the really good pics o Hubble - she's a bit of a mess. The insulation is cracking all over the place. I think a return to 1G would do a lot of damage and make he look like something of a sorry bird aestheticaly. Far better to have a 1:1 model, and then photos of the real thing where she belongs.

Doug

Ahh - great reading. I'm particularly interested in the student efforts - lots of creativity in there!

Doug

(PS - I think the Houyi pdf link is wonky)

A misconception held by whom? I doubt anyone here would think that.

RAT+Array=Bad idea. There are so many ways it could go dreadfully wrong. If there WAS anything that could be done in that way, they would have done it 1200 sols ago when they were at the 300 Whrs level before Larrys Lookout. There is nothing MER could do to dislodge the dust. I can understand the desperation - but it's just a case of holding tight. That's it.

Doug

The difference in gravity is negligible. The radius of the Earth is 6378km, and gravity inversely scales with the square of that radius. At 30km altitude, you're at 6408. The difference in gravity would be approx 1%. There are balloons that can go higher, but they tend to be much larger, and much much MUCH more expensive. If you're lucky and have a small payload, a typical met-balloon might reach 120,000ft, but not significantly more than that.

Doug

Well - bad analogy time. Go up to your coffee table. Now touch tap it, with a motion of about 5mm/sec in one corner. Does any of the dust come off?

MER was Pathfinder heritage. Odyssey was MCO heritage. Phoenix is MPL heritage. I can see the point you're trying to make, but it's not entirely true. The one major problem - we can barely afford one MSL. Where is the money to build several more? There isn't any. More often than not, you want to fly a specific payload, and that specific payload has specific accommodation requirements and landing site challenges and thus requires a unique solution. I'm sure, if successful, the MSl decent profile will be re-flown several times in the future, but there isn't the money to fly many MSL sized vehicles, nor are there many interesting places where you could safely send MER clones.

Doug

The RAT would be able to reach perhaps 3 cells out of the hundreds on the array, so it would achieve nothing if it were even a sensible thing to do. Which it really isn't. You could end up expending quite a few Whrs on the operation itself, with the very best result being perhaps a 2% power increase, and the worst result being a power decrease. Most likely, you would end up with three scratched cells, a damaged RAT brush, no more power, and an entirely wasted effort.

Doug

It was one of the ones for the next round of Mars Scout. (MARVEL I think)

Doug

The balloon grows as the atmospheric pressure outside decreases. This maintains it's buoyancy - but eventually it just expands so much, the rubber/latex can't cope and it breaks. For balloons of this type, that typically happens at about 100,000 ft.

Basically, yes. That's my understanding of it. The HGA power down either caused or unearthed a power subsystem problem that they didn't know about.

Doug

GONAD (Gamma-Ray Observatory 'n' Astronomical Discoverer )

I'm hoping that this is how MER goes out - with a proud, somber moment.

Doug

Well - there's a lot of science to be had from the archives, and while it's always sad to see a spacecraft go, it's always a bonus to get some DSN time back.

Doug