As I undestand it - THIS misison couldnt as the arrays locked into place when they were rotated into position. Runing those motors backwarsd wouldnt work.

the next solar powered craft is Phoenix - and it has some fairly funky arrays that dont really fold 'up', but more concertina in a circle. But the misison is going to be killed off by the lack of light before dust ever becomes an issue

Then we're on MSL and it's RTG-o-rama



Doug

I think that telescope company is in Birkenhead - didnt they make the mirrors for the Faulkes scopes? I remember going "Ohh - Birkenhead" because that's where Helen and I both herald from in our youth

Odd that they went with a cluster of small engines instead of one main engine

I suppose it offers an element of redundency, much like the engine failure during the A13 launch, you can just burn the others for a little longer.

Doug

To enable the IDD to reach the whole of the solar arrays would mean making it three times bigger and three times heavier. It wouldnt fit.

Doug

And look at the power trend - essentially sustainable at between 400 and 700 whrs. That's basically enough.

It wont be a lack of power that kills these things - it'll be a mechanical failure.

Doug

Nope - somewhere else

doug

Are you suggesting shot-blasting the solar arrays with compressed martian air laden with dust?

Isnt the point mute anyway?

The rovers are still working - it's more likely a mechanical failure will kill them off - not a lack of power.

Doug

If you look at the easterly Husband peak from the Larrys Lookout panorama



I think that's what might be appearing over the false horizon

Doug

A combo of RTG's and Solar Arrays doesnt make any sense.

RTG's last a long long time. Consider the Viking landers. 4 years, and more.

I think cleanable solar arrays are just pointless. You want a very long duration mission - you give it an RTG. You want a short mission - then arrays are good, and if they get kept clean, well hell - BONUS

Doug

Basically the mass, volume and money spent on a system to try and remove dust would be better spent on a) not taking up Whr's cleaning the arrays, and haivng larger arrays in the first place

Doug

But not impossible

Doug

the left edge of Summit two might be the end of Ten.Val

If you consider the old Larry pan - look right up the end of the valley and it's quite steep - almost a bit of a cliff up there. We might be seing that in profile.

Doug

You have to admit - damaging a species native to another planet is a little different to accidentally standing on a woodlouse

To quote the Medicine Man we're currently taking 'all precautions' - and it's wise to do so, if for no other reason than if/when we detect life on mars, no one can say "that's not life on mars, thats the life we took with us"

Doug

"(as far as we know) lifeless world such as Mars."

Thats the point - we dont know that it's lifeless and indeed there's plenty of evidence that it may indeed have life now, or have had it in the past.

If it does have life - life totally different and unique to ours - contamination with life from our OWN planet may kill it off

And that would be a crime beyond all description imho

Doug

He was trying to do something fantastic, and I hope he keeps trying in a PI role - as the science package on B2 was fantastic....just trying to do the whole hog was a step too far I fear.

Hope it doesnt slow him down too much !!

Doug

About the same - perhaps a little less.

Remember - the rate of driving will also depend on what checks are inplace during the drive. Autonav is a lot slower than blind driving etc.

Doug

Not to put too much of an american-teen twist on it...

but that SOooooooo looks like white horses on a choppy sea

Doug

Lots of small dishes adding up to the same size as one large dish ends up as a cheaper option I presume?

Doug

I think the seams are a result of stuttering on playback - sometimes I get it - sometimes I dont

I wouldnt want to really go and fudge frames inbetween the ones that were taken - it wouldnt tell us anything new

I was inspired to go find more based on this

http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod/20000503/index.html

The f.o.v. is about a mile

Doug

I made this during a debate with a conspiracists anomalist loon on a forum elsewhere...but I thought I'd share it here just because..well..it's cool

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...ear_feature.gif

Doug

Lots more outcropping appearing

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/oss/mer...8L2M1_stamp.jpg

And..is that a hint of Victoria?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P0693L0M1.JPG


Doug

The piece of airbag you mean A Pancam spectra showed it to be the same as airbag material

Doug

It's probably been done by nature already - ejecta from impacts on earth making it to Mars is not out of the question

Doug

One excellent NASA data outlet is the MODIS stuff on Aqua and Terra..
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

It makes excellent viewing.

Also - ESA have always done a great job with SOHO imagery as well

I was pleased with the THEMIS team on Odyssey - they chuck their data out much more quickly than MSSS with MOC - 3 month chunks instead of 6 months chunks.

I look forward to seing how the HiRISE team manage things - and if it will integrate all the imagery from MRO

Doug

In the old days pre-internet, I could understand the need to somehow cover the costs of publishing to print, but now the costs are negligable via the internet. Going on the comparatively high per-unit-cost of bandwidth on this host - a 2mb pdf is the equiv of around 1.5p

It is about time that more was done in this mould - http://themarsjournal.org/

In this modern information age - it is totally wrong for scientific information to be hidden inside expensive journals instead of shared publicly.

Doug