Dec 4th News Conference |
Dec 4th News Conference |
Dec 3 2008, 08:58 PM
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#1
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/H...MSL_Update.html
From the wording of this announcement, MSL is clearly still on, which is a good thing. We'll have to wait and see. Doug |
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Guest_Enceladus75_* |
Dec 4 2008, 08:08 PM
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#2
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Guests |
It's somewhat disappointing to see that MSL has been delayed to a 2011 launch, but the upside is that there will be more time for testing of critical elements like the actuators which are critical and the all important skycrane which is a brand new technology.
It is better in my opinion for MSL to have a delay and a flawless flight/landing/surface operations than a rushed job resulting perhaps in at best a faulty rover that can't do good science on Mars and at worst a failed landing attempt and the consequences of that disaster. Beagle 2 and Mars Polar Lander paid the price of corner cutting and a big rush to launch. That said, Emily's question regarding the riskiness of relying on MRO to support data downlink from MSL is very important. Might there now be a need to launch a dedicated Mars telecoms orbiter to support the surface missions , a plan that was scrapped a while back? |
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Dec 4 2008, 08:30 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2517 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
Might there now be a need to launch a dedicated Mars telecoms orbiter to support the surface missions... Need or not, there's no money for such a thing. I guess if Odyssey and MRO (and MEx?, not sure about the politics there) have failed by the time MSL lands, then MSL will be DTE-only. Would they launch MSL if all the orbital assets were failed at the time of launch? I have no idea. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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