MSL Post Landing - Commissioning Period & Early Observations, Commissioning Activity Period 1B - Sols 9 through 16 |
MSL Post Landing - Commissioning Period & Early Observations, Commissioning Activity Period 1B - Sols 9 through 16 |
Aug 14 2012, 06:24 PM
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Now that Curiosity has her driving and science software installed and is ready to proceed, I figured it was time for a new thread. Please keep sol 0-8 discussion in the previous thread (including discussion of the full-frame MARDIs, as they come down), and post new stuff here.
Things to look forward to: a Mastcam pan of the top of the mountain to be uplinked in the next sol or two; testing of the steering actuators on sol 13; first drive on sol 15. This period, which Grotzinger told me would take "no fewer than 6 sols," will be followed by an "Intermission," during which the science team may choose to drive to a new site (not very far away) for Commissioning Activity Period 2, when they'll commission the arm and its instruments. Also, an admin note: we allowed a lot of chit-chat in the landing thread because we were all so excited about the successful landing But as we move forward, I'd like to ask people to be mindful of forum rule 2.2. The strength of this forum is in its high signal-to-noise ratio; avoid posting things that just say "wow, awesome" or "I agree." Please keep chit-chat to the chit-chat forum. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Aug 17 2012, 07:35 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 26 Joined: 7-August 12 Member No.: 6485 |
Can the ChemCam wear out? I'm not sure if this is a silly question, but one of the replies in the Telecon seemed fairly specific in terms of the maximum number of pulses that they'd be using in the coming weeks. I looked through Wiens et al. and couldn't find any specific indication, but was interested to see that they were only allowed to fire 4500 pulses during the depth profile tests.
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Aug 17 2012, 07:46 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
Can the ChemCam wear out? From http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1500.pdf -- "However, the instrument was limited to 30 analyses per sol, realistic for its expected laser lifetime of ~20,000 analyses." I'm not sure this applies to the flight unit but I would expect the laser to have some finite lifetime. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Aug 17 2012, 11:29 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 447 Joined: 1-July 05 From: New York City Member No.: 424 |
From http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1500.pdf -- "However, the instrument was limited to 30 analyses per sol, realistic for its expected laser lifetime of ~20,000 analyses." I'm not sure this applies to the flight unit but I would expect the laser to have some finite lifetime. At approximately 11:30 in today's press conference, Roger Wiens, ChemCam principal investigator, said that ChemCam's "benchmark qualification" was the ability to do 14,000 analyses. You can replay the press conference on ustream here. I have to say that it took me a little bit of googling to find the replay website. A reference to that url on the media announcements would have been helpful, or even just a mention that the replay would be hosted on ustream. TTT (It's probably a sign that I'm past my "sell by" date, but ustream is not a site that's in my brain's short-term RAM, or a term that I would have thought to have included in searching for NASA press conferences. Of course I know better now, but still ....) |
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