MSL landing sites Options

[tuvas]

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!

[BrianL]

If MSL is now going to be partially dependent on solar power, does this not eliminate consideration of the landing sites well off the equator?

[mcaplinger]

If MSL is now going to be partially dependent on solar power, does this not eliminate consideration of the landing sites well off the equator?

The slides said only: "Rover power system design does not meet present mission requirements, requiring additional battery capacity, and possibly solar array".

I haven't heard any details about what solar options are under consideration and what constraints they might place on the mission. But it certainly hasn't been definitively decided to have solar arrays, and in my uninvolved engineering opinion, it seems pretty goofy to do so.