Lost landers from HiRISE, The next step |
Lost landers from HiRISE, The next step |
Jan 3 2007, 08:41 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 |
Okay, we now have definitive pictures of VL1, 2, Spirit, Opportunity, and a Pathfinder coming up soon. So, now, what would the lost landers look like, starting with Beagle, MPL, and Mars 6, which will be the easiest to find of the landers. Just curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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Jan 6 2007, 11:29 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
As I think I've pointed out in discussions here a year or two <?> ago, the 1971 global dust storm was in the decaying phase or at most a "plateau" phase at the time of the Mars probe and Mariner arrivals. When the dust fills the atmosphere and pushes tau <opacity, as is currently bothering Spirit rover> to two or more, thermal contrasts in the atmosphere vertically and horizontally are much reduced. The intense variation in solar energy absorption between dusty and non-dusty atmosphere that plays a role in dust storm generation and spreading is gone. There's an increase and change in thermal tides from daytime heating and nighttime cooling of the atmosphere directly, instead of by contact with the heating and cooling surface, but that's generalized, not localized.
It's most unlikely that storm specific winds caused the failure of Mars 3. It's more likely that it hit hard due to imperfect landing system design or poor quality control, or the sorts of problems with the dust-inflated atmosphere that almost caused problems for the MER rovers. It could have had high lateral velocity due to winds and been smacked against a rock..... Whatever. The real problem is that there wasn't any real diagnostic telemetry (so far as we know) reporting on the descent and landing transmitted in real time or after landing. If any was stored on board for eventual relay, I suspect it was rudimentary anyway. There were signals during descent, but I think at a very low data rate. |
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