ExoMars |
ExoMars |
Guest_Sunspot_* |
Aug 25 2005, 11:22 AM
Post
#1
|
Guests |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180840.stm
Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet. It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package. |
|
|
Jun 13 2006, 12:53 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
British Scientists Unveil Latest Craft To Search For Life On Mars
London, England (AFP) Jun 12, 2006 British scientists on Monday took the wraps off a prototype craft to search for signs of life on Mars, hailing it the smartest piece of equipment ever designed for exploration of the red planet. http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/British_S...fe_On_Mars.html -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
|
|
Jun 13 2006, 01:07 PM
Post
#3
|
|
Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
British Scientists Unveil Latest Craft To Search For Life On Mars London, England (AFP) Jun 12, 2006 British scientists on Monday took the wraps off a prototype craft to search for signs of life on Mars, hailing it the smartest piece of equipment ever designed for exploration of the red planet. http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/British_S...fe_On_Mars.html Bridget?!? -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
|
|
Jun 13 2006, 01:59 PM
Post
#4
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Bridget?!? British scientists are apparently very lonely. To quote from the article: "They have done maybe 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in total," Healy said. (The actual total, according to NASA, is 14.86 kilometers, or 9.23 miles.) "The rover here (Bridget) will have done that within four to six months at the most. It's got to go to 10 sites that are up to one kilometer (0.6 miles) apart." To echo Analyst, of course a rover one decade from the time of the MERs is likely going to do better. But I am not impressed that it will do things faster. It's the quality of the data I care about. If you want faster and better (but not cheaper), send humans. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
|
|
Jun 13 2006, 03:58 PM
Post
#5
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1636 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Lima, Peru Member No.: 385 |
"They have done maybe 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in total," Healy said. (The actual total, according to NASA, is 14.86 kilometers, or 9.23 miles.) "The rover here (Bridget) will have done that within four to six months at the most. It's got to go to 10 sites that are up to one kilometer (0.6 miles) apart." To echo Analyst, of course a rover one decade from the time of the MERs is likely going to do better. But I am not impressed that it will do things faster. It's the quality of the data I care about. If you want faster and better (but not cheaper), send humans. These improvement will depend upon to a much improved microprocessor. The vital brain to direct as fast, as smart and as efficiently all Mars' operations. That part, MER is lacking that much power since it depends very much from Earth remote commanding. The know most powerful microprocessor that is going to send along with MSL: RAD 750, alike to IBM/Motorola PowerPC 750 dated on the year 1998 which is still very much lagged to our present technology. (Third Generation and now the latest ones is of 5 Generation with 8.125 times faster). Maybe, one of the most noticeable bottleneck of the space exploration advancement is the radiation-hardened process done by the BAE Systems, isn't? Rodolfo |
|
|
Jun 13 2006, 09:30 PM
Post
#6
|
|
Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
The know most powerful microprocessor that is going to send along with MSL: RAD 750, alike to IBM/Motorola PowerPC 750 dated on the year 1998 which is still very much lagged to our present technology. (Third Generation and now the latest ones is of 5 Generation with 8.125 times faster). You are right that the RAD-750 represents the best current hardware that is rated for missions like these but it's worth pointing out that the RAD-750 is closer to 20x slower than current generation hardware (whether x86, Power, ARM, Niagra (SPARC) or Cell). More importantly the MIPs( or FIPS)\watt numbers for some of the current gen hardware beats the RAD-750 by almost 200x. The latest 1Ghz ULV Core Duo has an average power consumpton of 0.75watt. Benchmarking comparisons are hard when the CPU architectures are as different as the Power architecture of the RAD-750 and the x86 Core Duo are but the former is rated at ~240 VAX Mips while the 1 Ghz ULV Core Duo is about equivalent to a 2Ghz P4 which is ~4500 VAX Mips. That's just shy of 20x the processing capability while eating 7.5% of the power. It's also worth pointing out that the RAD-750 has about 20x the performance per watt of the RAD6000 that the MER's use (22 Mips peak @ 20 Watts) which makes the MER on board compute capability about 4000x worse than the current "state of the art" here on earth. For me that just shows how extremely hard space exploration actually is. |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 31st October 2024 - 11:18 PM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |