MSL development & assembly, Until it's shipped to the Cape Options

[climber]

In case you missed it there's 9 minutes on MSL (actual hardware visible) + 5 minutes with Dr Elachi on "This week in Space" there: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/
14 minutes out of 23 regarding Unmanned, not bad.

[punkboi]

Looks like NASA is planning to launch MSL between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...elease_2010-171

[punkboi]

High Gain Antenna for the Curiosity rover is en route to JPL

http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=525858649

[punkboi]

NASA Dryden Hosts Radar Tests for Next Mars Landing

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-197

Engineers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are running diverse trials with a test version of the radar system that will enable NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission to put the Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface in August 2012.

One set of tests conducted over a desert lakebed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., in May 2010 used flights with a helicopter simulating specific descent paths anticipated for Martian sites.

[climber]

Very nice topic actually. BTW, do we know the dead line to get MSL sent to the Cape?

[punkboi]

Spacecraft are usually sent to the Cape 3 months before launch...though in Spirit and Opportunity's case, they were delivered to Cape Canaveral 4-5 months before launch (January 2003, while Spirit launched in June and Opportunity launched in July of that year)

If MSL launches in November of 2011, then early summer going on the assumption above

[ElkGroveDan]

If they want a really robust test location to simulate unknown Martian landing conditions they should go to the desert areas in and around Joshua Tree National Park.

[nprev]

Do we know the means by which MSL will be sent to the Cape yet (i.e., airlift or overland)?

[djellison]

Oh - I don't think they've overlanded a spacecraft in years have they? Bound to be an airlift.

[nprev]

For some reason, I thought that the MERs went overland. I know that JPL has (or had) a fairly robust overland transport infrastructure for moving spacecraft. (I think airlift's the way to go, though, definitely.)

[stevesliva]

(I think airlift's the way to go, though, definitely.)

http://www.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123137819

Googled around assuming it would be placed on a C-17. Bingo.

[Guest_Enceladus75_*]

Wasn't Galileo transported back and forth from the Cape to California via road overland? And wasn't the overland mode blamed for the removal of lubricant from that high gain antenna which never was able to open fully?

I would hope ALL deep space unmanned craft were transported to the launch site via airlift. And if not, by sea.

[nprev]

I think Galileo actually went back & forth between the Cape & JPL several times due to launch delays, and that eventually hosed the lubricant.

Very happy to hear that MSL's definitely flying; a C-17 is a nice, safe, smooth ride!

[centsworth_II]

For some reason, I thought that the MERs went overland....

Could be the first sentence from chapter 10 of Roving Mars.

"At 5 A.M. on February 22, 2003, a truck convoy left JPL, carrying the MER-2 rover to Florida. In a nice dramatic touch, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake hit southern California just forty minutes before the trucks rolled..."

[nprev]

Probably. Time to reread that anyhow; thanks for the reminder $0.02!