MSL reasons for delay |
MSL reasons for delay |
Mar 4 2009, 03:33 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
I wanted to make sure that everyone interested sees Adrian Brown's articles at http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1319/1 and http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1318/1 about the technical and budgetary problems with MSL that led to the launch slip. While I can't claim to be privy to the budgetary and political issues at the mission level, the technical discussion seems like a fair summary of the situation as I understand it, at least as good a one as can be gathered from public sources.
People in other forums have complained about errors in these articles, but without giving specific examples or providing any factual basis for their objections. I don't find that very useful. If there are real flaws in this account, I'd be quite interested to know what they are. p.s. I guess we need to change the name of this subforum. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Jul 16 2009, 02:55 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Brian? Read "Roving Mars" by Steve Squyres sometime. The MERs came so close to cancellation so many times, it's almost a running joke.
Spirit and Oppy were once spoken of by Ed Weiler, who had the yea-or-nay vote on continuing with them, as things that "would look just great over at Air and Space." Unflown. Forever. The MERs also got a major descope after the "final" design had been approved -- the Raman spectrometer was axed, something that Squyres has said all along is his greatest regret from the design and assembly phase. So, no -- the MERs didn't have an easy path. It's almost miraculous that they even got launched. And their costs overran something fierce (I don't remember the original bid numbers vs. the eventual cost through the end of the primary mission, but it was something like a 60% to a 100% overrun.) Their development cycles were every bit as fraught with peril as MSL's has been, perhaps moreso. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Jul 16 2009, 03:42 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
And [MER's] costs overran something fierce (I don't remember the original bid numbers vs. the eventual cost through the end of the primary mission, but it was something like a 60% to a 100% overrun.) Relative to the original 2003 proposal, it was probably more like 3-4x. Even more relative to the original Athena proposal. Not that a final cost accounting for MER is easy to come by. That's why I can only sigh in frustration when someone suggests that flying copies of MER would be cheap and risk-free. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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