MSL landing sites |
MSL landing sites |
Apr 5 2007, 11:27 PM
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#1
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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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Feb 4 2011, 01:33 AM
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#2
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Go and read the meeting presentations and find out for yourself.
All four are safe enough, that is for sure. As for which is most scientifically interesting....ask four scientists and you'll get four totally different answers. There is no 'right' landing site. |
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Feb 7 2011, 05:23 PM
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#3
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 46 Joined: 6-January 10 From: Toronto, ON Member No.: 5163 |
All four are safe enough, that is for sure. To answer centsworth_II's question though, they are not all equally safe. They have been ranked in terms of ruggedness, as well as the risk to EDL (i.e. weather conditions during the EDL timeframe). Mawrth is considered to be the "safest" site. Holden and Eberswalde are very rugged, which makes the engineers leery. Gale has some EDL concerns, plus the landing ellipse is relatively far from the mound, and so there is a concern that the rover would never make it to the mound during the primary mission (this is also a bit of a concern for Eberswalde due to the location of the landing ellipse relative to the delta). As for which is most scientifically interesting....ask four scientists and you'll get four totally different answers. There is no 'right' landing site. They may all be interesting and for different reasons, but the question is which site will you gain the most from in terms of what the rover is actually capable of doing, as well as in terms of what you will learn about the history of Mars. That's the purpose of the landing site workshops. -------------------- Twitter: @tanyaofmars
Web: http://www.tanyaofmars.com |
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Feb 7 2011, 05:36 PM
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#4
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Holden and Eberswalde are very rugged, which makes the engineers leery. Really? That's not what they said at the most recent landing site selection meeting. From my notes: QUOTE We can now see just about every hazard that could possibly cause Curiosity to fail during landing using actual data, not models.
There are no hazards that we can see at any of the four landing sites that make the engineers nervous. Any one of the four sites would produce the represent the safest landing site (in terms of predicted hazards) that we have ever had on Mars. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Feb 7 2011, 08:16 PM
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#5
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Really? That's not what they said at the most recent landing site selection meeting. From my notes: Seconded. I saw the presentations as well and none of the sites were marked out as making the engineers 'leery' - indeed they were described as the four safest landing sites in the history of Mars exploration. |
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