MTO Cancelled |
MTO Cancelled |
Jul 21 2005, 06:30 PM
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#1
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Just listening to the MRO conference. Highlights included...
1) 5.4 Mbits is the highest MRO data rate (not the 4 I thought) 2) An extra 50-ish KG of fuel puts it's low-altitude orbit life thru to the next decade. 3) MTO HAS BEEN CANCELLED What the HELL! They say that MSL can still do its mission with just MRO as it's relay capacity will suffice. But that means less science data during an MRO extension Seems a bit short sighted. Doug |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Jul 22 2005, 05:36 PM
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#2
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Guests |
I've just rechecked my notes from the January Mars Roadmap meeting. MTO was suppposed to return five to 50 times as much data daily as MRO and Odyssey combined could. (Each of them could return 100 Mbytes daily; MTO was supposed to return 1 to 10 Gbytes daily.)
And, being in a high orbit, it would have allowed real-time contact with the rover for 2.5 to 9 hours out of every Sol (split up into 5 or 6 sessions), as opposed to the 16 minutes/Sol allowed by each low-altitude science orbiter -- which means that it would have allowed them to drive every rover during MTO's 10-year lifetime for vastly greater distances across the surface and study far more targets. In short, by giving up MTO they HAVE given up the amount of additional science return that they would have gotten, not just from one additional science mission, but from several. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. |
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