A straight copy of the Beagle 2 science payload wouldnt be a bad move - given time to test and calibrate it all properly.

Doug

One thing space isnt short of it's Acronyms

MEX, MGS, MODY, MRO, MER, MSL...it's madness

Doug

Totally depends on the strategy they take. If they think "right - that's Husband hill done - lets floor it" - then it could be perhaps as little as 60 sols to get there.

If they do stops at sites en route - you can quadrouple that.

Doug

And why the american data realy - is MEX expected to give up in the near future?

America wont supply an EDl system - ITAR makes sure of that.

Doug

Well - I see 9 columns of data - which is about as much as they can do in a single sol, so Sol 584 and 585 will see the remaining two thirds being imaged.

Sat up on top of a hill is probably rather condusive to excellent UHF passes - a full 360 degree panorama is about 400 - 500 Mbits.

Doug

My god - another 4 or more columns of imagery just arrived

Doug

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html

Sept 1st.

Doug

I have a special lurkdar - a lurker detection machine - and it's off the scale

Yesterday - we had 116450 hits, instead of the more usual 50,000 or so

That translates into 1500 visits instead of the usual 800ish.

Doug

I was spelling it as Squires for 15 months before figuring it was Squyres

Hopefully I'll be skipping over most of those sorts of questions - straight down to the good stuff

Doug

Umm. Fithted? Sounds rude

Doug

I have images of Alan, Nico and I 'virtually' racing one another to make this one


http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...3_homeplate.jpg 2Mbytes

Doug

Yuo - about the same phase as the Marci image - but big enough to be used as a dekstop background


Doug

Nope

One downside of invision is that you can make an image smaller. I may see if V2.1 allows it - as it would be nice to have them at 512 x 512 instead.

Doug

I've got it stitched in nasty-not-match-colour - and it's a stunner

Doug

We need one of those brass plaques with an outline of the skyline - marking all the important features

Doug

I'd done a lovely partial pan - then a whole lot more came down


http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...256_missing.jpg 750kb

The images are less than 8 hrs old.

Doug

Oh yeah - its there... '

Anyone else get banding on the large version of Tmans and Nix's mosaics?

Doug

LOL - my English teacher of 12 years ago will be laughing very hard

I couldnt actually find it at the site though - how did you find it?

Doug

I've given up - it's just TOO hard to get this lot to match - I'm sure someone else will figure it out, but I'll wait for the RADS


http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/582_trash.jpg 400kb

I know where and what you mean Phil "There was frost - it must be wet"



This stuff is like talc or cement dust - dry but strangely adhesive at time.

Doug

The L456 of Tennesse is down

Doug

Really - you cant focus on the blue ones - your eye isnt clever enough to do 'different' focus on it because it's a different wavelength

Have all three lined up - the blue one just wont focus.

It's very odd - I read it on the internet ( so it must be true ) and had a try myself and it's actually true

Doug

Thanks

Doug

Mind if I use this in an article for Spacedaily.com ? Full credt will be given..

Doug

I like SCIM a lot - but I have worries over our knowledge of the atmospheric density at high altitudes. We were suprised by the MER descent profiles - and having a play in Orbiter - all be it a very primative simulation - a tiny difference in altitude could make a HUGE difference in the delta-v imparted by the high altitude pass.

Using one scenario - an altitude of 36km sees an incoming spacecraft crash into the surface, 37km breaking into a low orbit, 40k break into a very eliptical orbit, and 41km 'scims' striaght on through.

Of course the planes are very very sexy missions but astonishingly short lived.

I think an orbiter with a creative means to get good downlink to earth would be a sure fire winner if they fitted an electra payload onto it - regardless of its scientific credentials.

Doug