MSL EDL Hardware, Its state & fate |
MSL EDL Hardware, Its state & fate |
Aug 7 2012, 06:17 PM
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#1
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 46 Joined: 14-January 06 Member No.: 645 |
Looking at the HiRISE imagery of the descent stage, does the distribution of the debris field represent the disintegration of the stage from impact only, or is it possible that some or all of the 140+/- kilos of Hydrozine exploded and expanded the debris field? [I understand the darker albedo material is from below the surface]
Does the thin martian atmosphere contain enough oxygen to support combustion/explosion? [guessing No, but my chem is insufficient] Were the hydrazine cells sufficiently designed to survive impact intact? I couldn't find anything on the net or in the specs, any ideas? |
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Aug 8 2012, 02:36 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
I've taken a closer look at the descent stage crash site, and I annotated it a bit to point out a few things I've noticed.
First off, I've drawn red arrows to point out what appear to be secondary impacts, mostly without any streaking of ejecta, just very dark spots where they don't appear to belong. I imagine a few of these are rock shadows, but most of them appear to be freshly disturbed soil. One area I really noticed was a small crater nearly under the stage's flyaway path that has four very dark spots in it. It's about the only sign of disturbance that is uprange of the crash site. The green arrows point out four distinct plumes that fan out from what appears to be the main impact site. The northenmost of the four plumes are connected, almost just a small side-plume from a main plume. The other two plumes are very distinct and separate from the rest. Looks almost like the descent stage flipped over and hit the ground with the engines firing in the direction of flight, although I certainly don't insist on that interpretation. Finally, there is this aureole-like feature just uprange of the impact point that I have rather imperfectly tried to outline in yellow. I see a very light disturbance in this area, much less darkened than the ejecta spray downrange of the impact. This uprange feature also appears to show radial spiking around its outside extent. The combination of the four disturbed points in the crater uprange of the impact point and the plumes fanning forward from the impact point again makes me wonder exactly what happened as the stage came in for its crash-landing. I don't even know if it's possible for the engines to have been firing by the time it impacted; the fans I see may be separate ejecta events from each of the largest pieces of structure that hit at the main impact point. But it does look awfully suggestive. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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