2009 Or 2011 ?, 1 or 2 ? |
2009 Or 2011 ?, 1 or 2 ? |
May 3 2005, 11:11 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 290 Joined: 26-March 04 From: Edam, The Netherlands Member No.: 65 |
Does anybody know when and how many MSL will go, or when the decision on this will be made ?
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Nov 28 2005, 05:56 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
The Soviet Venera 11 and 12 landers performed nominal missions through atmospher descent (returning excellent science) until touchdown, when both -- IDENTICALLY -- failed to turn on post-landing instrumentation and activivies.
. . ! oops ! . What is better than flying two of one kind at the same time is to build more than one, and fly them at 1 opposition intervals. If you design *reasonably* well, most screwups don't require total mission redesign and can be "patched" before the next launch opportunity. I don't know what the Mars Program reorganization Bruce Moomaw is promising us we'll learn about in his Astronomy article (was it?)..... What I'd like to see about 3 total MSL missions, with a third possibly having a re-selected set of instruments. They'd be sent, as with the current rovers, to as fundamentally different geologic regions as possible within the constraints of focusing on the Martian history of water and potentially life-supporting environments. NorthEast Meridiani, in the area of greatest differential stripping of layered sedimentary units is an obvious candidate. The Melas Chasma candidate site for the MER-B is another, with spectacularly varied geology plus scenery that rocks. I've been somewhat surprises at the little interest in the layered deposits of Hellas planitia. A potential site might be the lowest place on Mars, NorthWest Hellas, with access to basin floor sediments and cratered highland deposits of the rim (driving might be a bit long-range) I don't want to try for a 4'th time at outflow channel deposits, having failed to find "of interest" with Viking 1 in Chryse, Pathfinder in Ares Vallis, and MER-A on the basalt-covered plains of Gusev |
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