They'll just take off the backshell and get the sample canister out at the range - then send that on over to TX for proper opening and analysis. THAT should happen Thursday I understand.

Doug

All the design stuff I've seen has the RTG sticking out the back

Doug

The surviving flyby spacecraft can be used if someone succesfully applies for funding under a Discovery 'mission of opportunity' - http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/dpl.html

I hope someone will get some funding, and it could do imaging, dust counting and dust Mass.Spec of another comet.

Doug

Vertigo say they may have it - they're going to land and check it out

Not easy to find in that lot.

Doug

Touchdown confirmed.



Pitchforks away - Lo-Mart live another day.


Doug

Flood control is there for a reason

This isnt a chat room (I was in #space for it ) You could always just edit your post instead.

That was nerver wracking indeed - nothing drogue related until quite late.

Doug

Cat on Lap, NASA TV on Sky News active, Cup of Tea

Doug is go for landing


Doug

Yes - it's clearly just being 'polite' about it until they have to start with the 'it's actually quite safe and you have nothing to worry about' efforts in a few years. I've not seen any mention of anything other than an RTG, and no mention anywhere of Solar Arrays.

Doug

Take away the solar arrays, and MER's deck has the Pancam Mast, HGA, LGA, UHF, Calib Target, Mini-TES calib target and a load of hold-down-bolts. The only thing the MSL deck is missing in the drawings is UHF, LGA and Calibration targets really. It's not out of the question that the UHF might end up on top of the pancam assembly, and the LGA be forgoed alltogether. Just because there is some space there doesnt mean it has to be used for something.

I've not seen anything, anywhere, that suggests MSL WON'T be using RTG-type power and I've seen nothing anywhere that suggests is WILL be using solar power.

Doug

Look at that, it will start NNW, above Casiopia (marked CAS a big W shape on its side ), and finish off in the East, having past 'below' the 'top' of the handle of Ursa Major.

Your best bet is to star by looking NNW - but continually scan both left to right, and up and down, as these things sometimes throw a suprise at you

Doug

If you look at the copyright info on the bottom, often it's Orbital imagery specialists, and sometimes is Aerial imagery specialists

Wouldnt 'Google Mars' be good Start with the MSSS geodesy base map, add mola elevation, and then bring in your own MOC/THEMIS imagery on top

Doug

Particularly given what he mentions during the dodgy audio areas, specifically that one of the MER team in the landing video was one of those tragically killed in the accident at JPL a while back. I think that's what he was suggesting.

Doug

'aint no replacement for displacement.....



Doug

Amazingly - Dell have come out with their version of the 30" display that apple make.... for £1287 (£500 less than Apple) - 2560 x 1600 res That's 4MP

Now, two of THOSE is 8 MP

But you'd still need an array of 10 x 2 to show a Pancam mosaic in full - and that's £26000

Doug

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6...8&q=mars+rovers

In January of this year, two golf-cart sized rovers landed on the planet Mars to seek evidence about whether the environment there might once have been capable of supporting life. Originally intended to last 90 days and rover 600 meters, these two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have far exceeded those expectations. Pete Theisinger, the Manager of the Mars Exploration Rover Project through its development, and now Manager of the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory Project, will describe the challenges of developing the two Mars Exploration Rovers in just three years. He will discuss the design process, relate the myriad challenges and setbacks that had to be overcome during development and operations, and give the definitive behind-the-scenes story of the extraordinary flight and surface operations of the Rover, including some glimpses into the mission's scientific results.

Doug

And, to be honest, I think you could make an all metal wheel lighter than a pneumatic one. You've got to make a metal hub for the pneumatic wheel anyway, might as well make it a bit bigger and forego the risk of puncture, deflation etc.

Doug

If the " To the frontier..." one is Alans...

Alan, your rocket drawings need work. When the first stage sinks to the bottom of the atlantic after burnout, the fish will look at the fairing sketch, go "hmmm - what's that" - then look at the spent stage and go "nahh - he must have meant something else"

I have reliable reports that there is some very dry humour hidden within the wreckage of Beagle 2 in the form of little hand drawn notes on internal structures

Doug

I imagine it's part of the $XXXM rocket price

Doug

Having done the above - then the attached might be useful...

I had the mer1ho_0xxx , 2ho, 2no and 1no folders on the root of a drive called H

If you unzip the attached into the root of H - you will find img2png.exe ( hope you dont mind me repackaging it with these little bat's Bjorn - img2png is from here - http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/utils/img2png/ ) - imgbat.bat (my bat to run img2png on a load of files, and then tuck the raw img's into a 'raw' folder to keep things tidy.

AND - four bats - one named after each of the folders above.

Now all this HAS to run in the root, and HAS to be on a drive called H:. If you can dump it all onto an external drive and set that to H: ( control panel, admin tools, computer management, disk management ) - or any drive ( that isnt C: obviously) then do it - otherwise you'll have to open each bat and search and replace every h: for a whatever: you're stuff is on.

THEN

Just run them - it'll plough thru the downloaded data - copying my bat and img2png into each folder, running it, then backing up and doing the next folder.

I'm sure there is a more glamorous way of doing it - but I did the brain-dead way of having a massive long bat that will simply do this for 1500 sols worth of data. 1500 was big enough to not have to worry about rewriting it in the near future, but no so big that the BAT file ends up too large.

I've checked, and as long as you have those four folders on the root of H - it works beautifully. Expect about an hour for a ho data set, and about two hours for a no data set. - Since about 1030am, I've done two HO's and one N ( and that's in 3 hrs 26)

Hope these are usefull. Combined with the wget, and the bats above - this setup will let you download and process about 30,000 images.

Just as a double check - you need to have the highlighted files in the root of a drive called H to run them as they are.



Doug

Yes - I think the bees dance is more a low level of communication - it's not teaching. Teaching is a two way thing. Show someone something - they have a go - show them how they went wrong.

A bee will just go "good stuff is over there". If the other bee goes the wrong way, it wont go "No...No...left by the tree, not right"



Doug

Well - mine's had it's WEB off, the WEB wrapped in gold foil, and the WEB reattached

It looks better, but I've got more 'mods' planned yet

They're on hold while I build my scratch New Horizons though

Doug

New 'Orizons, that'd be the Londoner mission Pluto then

Doug

LMFAO - I hadnt thought of Ms. Door's w.r.t Dust My cousin-in-law ( is there such a thing?) does a SUPERB "Dust? Anybody? No? Dust?"

Doug

Stardust info up on the library - and DI with a big library here
http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/discovery/d...ct_package.html


It would seem they intend to beef up the stardust info after the divert manouver

Doug