MSL Curiosity Lands Safely in Gale Crater, Landing and Commissioning Activity Period 1A, sols 0-8 Options

[mcaplinger]

MSL sundial / calibration target is spare piece of flight hw from MER project...this article

Interesting article. One note: even though the artwork shows "Mars 2012" the actual cal target still said "Mars 2010" at the top the last time I saw it in early 2010 (it wasn't updated after the launch slip.) You can't see this in the Mastcam image because the gnomen occludes it. Maybe it got revised at JPL but I doubt it.

[drz1111]

Sorry for a first time post that doesn't really add much in the way of info:

Are there any other geologists around to talk about the geology side of the mission? IMO, even the ostensibly geology-heavy thread - the landing site thread - eventually focused on technical/engineering matters. The geology at Gale seems pretty incredible - one thing I'm really interested in is if they can get a sense of the uplift/"tectonics"/exhumation history at Gale. I know the focus is on the geochem and sedpet, but a better understanding of Mars geodynamics from ~4 Ga would be pretty amazing (and indirectly relate to the main focus on paleoenvironments).

FWIW, something I read upthread that jumped out at me - noting that the north crater wall was higher than the shorelines of the so-called "Northern Ocean", implying that any water body in Gale couldn't have been connected to a larger body of water in the North - that assumes that the paleoelevations at Gale were the same as they are today. That seems VERY unlikely to me, given that the whole crater is tiled up to the south and there's ~5km of exhumation in the crater. I'd be inclined to wait until they've poked into the rocks to make a statement like that, or you might get Gusev-ed. The landing site papers/PPTs are pretty agnostic as to the geologic setting in which the sediments were formed that they'll be looking at, IMO.

[ngunn]

Sorry for a first time post that doesn't really add much in the way of info:

Don't apologise. Good points and good questions. We really need an 'Understanding Gale' thread (or we will soon). Sorry I'm not your geologist, but don't worry - they're here.

(Just one afterthought: Gale is likely tilted because it formed on an already sloping surface.)

[RoverDriver]

...
Are there any other geologists around to talk about the geology side of the mission? IMO, even the ostensibly geology-heavy thread - the landing site thread - eventually focused on technical/engineering matters. The geology at Gale seems pretty incredible - one thing I'm really interested in is if they can get a sense of the uplift/"tectonics"/exhumation history at Gale. I know the focus is on the geochem and sedpet, but a better understanding of Mars geodynamics from ~4 Ga would be pretty amazing (and indirectly relate to the main focus on paleoenvironments).
...

I think there is quite a bit of geology in the Landing Site Selection paper that is listed in the FAQ. I wish I could help more but am on teh engineering side of things.

Paolo

[Explorer1]

The immediate area seems rather simple so not too much to say on it. But I'm pretty sure the scientific discussion will pick up a lot once the mission actually begins full science operations in different areas and especially after the science team starts presenting their findings. See the MER/Phoenix forums for the same trend.

[stewjack]

We really need an 'Understanding Gale' [geology] thread

I am not a geologist either, I am retired and only have an associate degree, and that is in the life sciences. However; in following the exploration of mars, I have much more confidence that mars has geology than I am that it might have easily discoverable complex organic molecules!

However the instruments should please everybody. As an old lab tech I like instruments. The per sol data collection should be massive. EXAMPLE ChemCam
My understaning is that ChemCam is a "use it or lose it" instrument. It can break, but it doesn't get used up if you use it 1,000 times, 10,000 times, 100,000 times. That is just an assumption on my part. But it is based on some information. Back in my day you used to have to buy reagents for instruments!
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/missio...meters/chemcam/
From 23 feet (7 meters) away, ChemCam will be able to:

rapidly identify the kind of rock being studied (for example, whether it is volcanic or sedimentary);

determine the composition of soils and pebbles;

measure the abundance of all chemical elements, including trace elements and those that might be hazardous to humans;

recognize ice and minerals with water molecules in their crystal structures;

measure the depth and composition of weathering rinds on rocks; and,

provide visual assistance during drilling of rock cores.

And UNDER ChenCam LIB's instrument
http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/ChemCam/
Types of Investigations
3. Soil and pebble composition surveys. The ChemCam team plans to make a measurement of the soil near the rover each sol to document the range of soil compositions over which the rover traverses. These measurements may signal the presence of a new geological region, and will tell about the compositional similarity of the dust from place to place on Mars.

[Astro0]

Nice use of the early panorama here on the 360cities website.

[Explorer1]

I just caught today's Cosmoquest and am trying to answer the 'How does Curiosity go to the bathroom' question regarding samples taken in by SAM.
This page says
"SAM vacuum elements will be cleaned as necessary during the course of the mission by in situ bakeout."

While the official SAM page say this:
"The wide range pump spins at 100,000 revolutions per minute to transfer gas out of the system between analyses of different samples."

Does SAM end up with any solid waste at all? Both pages speak of bakeouts and gas, so if I'm reading this right Curiosity's only waste product is a bit of flatulence from the same hole the samples went into....
I'm only inferring this from limited details on two pages, both for public consumption, so feel free to correct me.

[Zeke4ther]

I just caught today's Cosmoquest and am trying to answer the 'How does Curiosity go to the bathroom' question regarding samples taken in by SAM. ...

One of the videos that I watched that explained the operation of the SAM instrument, had one of the investigators explain what happens to the sample after it is analyzed.
He explained, that to avoid contaminating the martian environment, the powdered sample gets dumped into a bin at the bottom of the rover and retained. The bin apparently has sufficient capacity that far exceeds the expected lifetime of the mission.

[Explorer1]

Ah, that explains why there's no hole or hatch in the bottom, and the extra weight is negligible of course.

[jamescanvin]

I remember hearing about dumping waste within SAM too, however I can find no mention of this procedure in the SAM paper (facinating reading though)

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p26510688kg4q808/

[Brian Lynch]

Very quick cropped gif of the "splat" zone.

Nice, good catch!

After getting the ephemeris file for MSL from JPL HORIZONS, I was able to estimate the EDL trajectory (the data is only available in intervals of 1 minute so I had to interpolate to get a detailed trajectory). I will make a detailed description and post a link later on, but here is a look at the results:



The higher resolution version is here.

Once the full res descent images are all available I will add the trajectory to the descent video and include altitude and velocity as well. Does anyone know where I could find elevation data for Gale?

[Tesheiner]

Created a new thread for MARDI images and videos (now moving posts...). Please post relevant news there.

[iMPREPREX]

Created a new thread for MARDI images and videos (now moving posts...). Please post relevant news there.

Those MARDI images the members here made are extraordinary! Thanks for creating a thread for MARDI!

Also, I acquired the missing data (in high resolution) from SOL 3 and made another GigaPan and 360 degree pano. The new images are at the bottom - by the wheel and to the left.

The GigaPan:

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/111856

And the 360:

http://www.360cities.net/image/mars-sol-3-...81612-the-world

Enjoy. This is exciting stuff.

Also - still missing 11 subframes... Couldn't get those.

[Tesheiner]

Created a new thread for MARDI images and videos (now moving posts...). Please post relevant news there.

Done. And just a reminder to everyone, something that came to mind during the process.
Don't refer to other's posts as e.g. "post #123" but link to them as this example. Threads are moderated and posts may be moved, merged, deleted, etc. so the numbering is useless and will become obsolete.