Nasa announces new rover mission to Mars in 2020 |
Nasa announces new rover mission to Mars in 2020 |
Feb 19 2014, 01:06 PM
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#151
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Member Group: Members Posts: 102 Joined: 8-August 12 Member No.: 6511 |
YES!! Really. It's a refly - not a redesign. I suppose Moore's Law has become so thoroughly internalized that one's immediate, reflexive response to "it's a refly" is "except for the electronics, of course, right? right?" There are of course perfectly good reasons to use heritage electronics! It makes sense. But if you're not a professional in the field, yes, there is a moment of startle. Doug M. |
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Feb 19 2014, 02:16 PM
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#152
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
"Better is the enemy of good enough."
-------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Feb 19 2014, 04:34 PM
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#153
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I suppose Moore's Law has become so thoroughly internalized that one's immediate, reflexive response to "it's a refly" is "except for the electronics, of course, right? right?" When it comes to spaceflight - you would probably change everything else before touching the electronics. Look at Phoenix - it flew with virtual Pathfinder like electronics. The RAD6000 has been flying for 14 years or so. 9 years now since the first RAD750 launch. |
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Feb 19 2014, 04:58 PM
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#154
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Member Group: Members Posts: 201 Joined: 16-December 13 Member No.: 7067 |
Didn't they already fly the spare Marsdial?
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Feb 19 2014, 05:47 PM
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#155
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Regarding's Doug's "Really?" to Doug:
Computer hardware has ceased its breakneck rate of accelerating speeds which was a given (Moore's Law) for decades. Commercial products continue to see incremental improvements, but not on the exponential trend which was true until about 10 years ago. For spacecraft, the value of the reliability of a known system outweighs incremental increases in performance. It would have been unthinkable to use Ranger 7's "computer" on Cassini, but the computers on spacecraft 20 years from now might be about the same as the ones flying now. Here's one image that sums up the trend. Note the logarithmic vertical axis. http://smoothspan.files.wordpress.com/2007...clockspeeds.jpg |
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Feb 19 2014, 07:31 PM
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#156
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Member Group: Members Posts: 154 Joined: 21-April 05 From: Rochester, New York, USA Member No.: 336 |
It seems clear though, that for rovers to be more human-like in capability and speed (vs. orbiters and fly-by spacecraft that have much simpler operating modes) advances in robust, reliable computing will be one of the key enablers.
I'm sure it won't be a simple, inexpensive task to design, build and test such capability, and the market for this technology is less than niche. |
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Feb 19 2014, 08:43 PM
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#157
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Member Group: Members Posts: 715 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
When you are trying to fly a new mission for a cost of $1.5B (vs. $2.5B for MSL) you have to find some significant cost savings. It's a tighter budget than that. Inflation will eat up about a third of that spending amount, so in MSL $s, the 2020 mission is closer to $1B. Tight. -------------------- |
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Feb 19 2014, 08:47 PM
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#158
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Member Group: Members Posts: 715 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
Commercial products continue to see incremental improvements, but not on the exponential trend which was true until about 10 years ago. I used to work for Intel. The killer is heat produced by the microprocessors. The engineers could have continued to pump out the performance improvements, but we'd all be using water cooled processors. (Actually have that in my office.) The reason for multicore processors was to go for lower performance per core, but be able to run multiple tasks/threads at once. -------------------- |
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Feb 20 2014, 02:30 PM
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#159
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Member Group: Members Posts: 102 Joined: 8-August 12 Member No.: 6511 |
Regarding's Doug's "Really?" to Doug: Computer hardware has ceased its breakneck rate of accelerating speeds which was a given (Moore's Law) for decades. Commercial products continue to see incremental improvements, but not on the exponential trend which was true until about 10 years ago. Yes, but current spacecraft hardware predates the flattening of the curve by a decade or more. Again, I understand the incentives. It looks like NASA has made a reasonable choice, especially given the cost constraints. But this means that, 20 years from now in the 2030s, there will be NASA engineers poring over the design specs of chips that are older than they are. There's nothing inherently wrong with that picture. Robust technology is robust. (Consider the B-52.) But it takes a slight mental adjustment. Doug M. |
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Feb 20 2014, 10:43 PM
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#160
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
>engineers poring over the design specs of chips that are older than they are
I can tell you from first hand knowledge that there are already engineers working in this field doing just that. |
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Feb 20 2014, 11:04 PM
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#161
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
And in military aviation as well, believe me.
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Feb 20 2014, 11:58 PM
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#162
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
There are people operating spacecraft at JPL launched a decade before they were born. There are people driving Mars rovers that landed when they were in High School.
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Jun 25 2014, 02:03 AM
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#163
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
Red Dragon would work in conjunction with the Mars 2020 sample collection rover, and be ready two years earlier for far less cost than the previous baseline mission. The above image links to the 70 minute video presentation. Larry Lemke - Red Dragon: Low Cost Access to the Surface of Mars Published on Jun 24, 2014 Abstract: One of Ames' long standing science interests has been to robotically drill deeply into Mars' subsurface environment (2 meters, or more) to investigate the habitability of that zone for past or extant life. Large, capable Mars landers would ease the problem of landing and operating deep robotic drills. In 2010, an Ames scientist realized that the crew-carrying version of the SpaceX Dragon capsule would possess all the subsystems necessary to perform a soft landing on Earth, and raised the question of whether it could also soft land on Mars. If it could, it might be a candidate platform for a Discovery or Mars Scout class deep drilling mission, for example. After approximately 3 years studying the engineering problem we have concluded that a minimally modified Dragon capsule (which we call the "Red Dragon") could successfully perform an all-propulsive Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL). We present and discuss the analysis that supports this conclusion. At the upper limits of its capability, a Red Dragon could land approximately 2 metric tons of useful payload, or approximately twice the mass that the MSL Skycrane demonstrated with a useful volume 3 or 4 times as great. This combination of features led us to speculate that it might be possible to land enough mass and volume with a Red Dragon to enable a Mars Sample Return mission in which Mars Orbit Rendezvous is avoided, and the return vehicle comes directly back to Earth. This potentially lowers the risk and cost of a sample return mission. We conclude that such an Earth-Direct sample return architecture is feasible if the Earth Return Vehicle is constructed as a small spacecraft. Larry Lemke will present and discuss the analysis that supports this conclusion. |
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Jun 25 2014, 02:38 AM
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#164
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
I remember ideas along these lines being tossed around on the Forum a few years back. Glad to see that there's some serious study of the concept in work!
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jul 31 2014, 06:03 PM
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#165
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Member Group: Members Posts: 270 Joined: 29-December 04 From: NLA0: Member No.: 133 |
Instruments just got announced:
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/july/nasa-a...s-never-before/ A bit more detailed information about the instruments is starting to pop up: PIXL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-253 SHERLOC: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-254 MOXIE: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/going-red-planet Mastcam-Z: https://asunews.asu.edu/20140731-mars-2020 -------------------- PDP, VAX and Alpha fanatic ; HP-Compaq is the Satan! ; Let us pray daily while facing Maynard! ; Life starts at 150 km/h ;
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