MSL landing sites |
MSL landing sites |
Apr 5 2007, 11:27 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 428 Joined: 21-August 06 From: Northern Virginia Member No.: 1062 |
As there are some pictures being released from HiRISE of proposed MSL landing sites, I thought I'd give you what little I know about the process. As of the HiRISE team meeting a month ago or so, there were about 40 proposed sites to land MSL. These sites were prioritized, and are being photographed roughly in priority order. Each site requires a picture from each of the 3 main cameras (CTX, CRISM, and HiRISE) in their highest resolution in order to proceed. If it's determined that there can be a safe landing site, as well as interesting science targets, then they will advance to the next level, where I presume they will "wallpaper" the areas with HiRISE and CRISM (CTX, well, they get the whole landing ellipse in one shot, I think...). They likely will also photograph science areas near the proposed sites to look for interesting targets. After that, well, your guess is as good as mine. Note that none of this is official, but it's what I would expect. Also note that the landing site selection is still opened to new suggestions, the ones they have so far are not a complete list. The priority also doesn't mean anything right now other than they are the targets which will be photographed first, these priorities are still subject to change. But, well, I thought I'd send this out there for you all sink your teeth on, it really is quite interesting!
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Apr 10 2009, 03:48 PM
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 18 Joined: 17-May 05 From: FL & WV Member No.: 390 |
I know the sites of the potential mud volcano that were recently reported differ from the sites of the methane venting reported earlier, based on ground based observations by a team led by Michael Mumma of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and as reported in New Scientist (as quoted below):
“We observed and mapped multiple plumes of methane on Mars, one of which released about 19,000 metric tonnes of methane,” team member Geronimo Villanueva of the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, said in a statement. However, a search for potential mud volcanos near the sites of the reported methane vents might produce interesting results and perhaps identify a potental landing site for a future mission (MSL or later). |
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