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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Jul 13 2007, 03:53 PM
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#2
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10256 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Elysium Planitia (AKA ice pack) might look like a good landing site, but there are some problems with it. First, it might be classed as a "special region", which MSL will not be sufficiently sterilized to land in. In the event of a crash, the RTG could encounter ice and create a warm water oasis (not very big, certainly, but still viable). This is not allowed for MSL. (Phoenix should encounter ice, but it will remain very cold).
Second, MSL's instruments don't suit it. A drill might be needed to get to any ice. This could be an ideal spot for a thoroughly sterilized deep drill mission in the future. Also, Elysium Planitia is really a one target site. Once you have looked at one location, what is there to do? It's quite uniform. MSL is designed to explore up and down a stack of sediments, or a similar multi-target site. For this reason, MSL would also be wasted on one of the 'windows' mentioned in a post above. An ideal MSL site will have dozens of distinct targets within about 10 or 15 km of the landing site, plus a potential for a really good extended mission with many more targets over a much longer traverse. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Jul 13 2007, 04:06 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
Elysium Planitia (AKA ice pack) might look like a good landing site, but there are some problems with it. First, it might be classed as a "special region", which MSL will not be sufficiently sterilized to land in. Can somebody explain me why some part of Phoenix are sterilized at 300.000 spore/m² while the arm is at 1 spore/m² (source Phoenix-Launch-presskit)? I mean, why can we sterilize MSL with the later value at least for the parts in contact with Mars ? PS : not only there is a risk of crash for MSL RTG's but also the Crane (or whaterver you call it) will definitively crash anyway. -------------------- |
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