The view from the High Bay viewing gallery this morning.
Click to view attachment

Ha!

There are some new pictures in KSC gallery:

Installation of ejectable* ballast masses.


Spin test


*@Oersted yes my mistake

Thx for the pics!

Love that Spin Test photo, seems like those engineers have thoughts for hitching a lift

Looks more like those engineers are taking a break and watching a movie off-screen or something

MSL & Descent stage both arrived at Florida:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-191

Photos:
http://yfrog.com/kk21rrmj
http://yfrog.com/kk2kbrj

-Descent stage


-MSL

-

The USAF C-17: When it absolutely, positively, has to meet a launch date....

So a lowly fork lift was the first stage of this space mission...

We do all tend to forget the critical importance of logistics. Not glamorous, of course, but BEYOND vital.

Unpacking descent stage @ KSC:



More: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

KrisK - there's no need to embed the images inline in the thread. Moreover, your link is to the hot-images catagory at KSC, so those images wont be in it in a day or three.

Far better to link the image info pages, so as to retain access to the higher resolution images and the appropriate credit and description..i.e.

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=54061

-

I have few of questions about the desent stage thrusters.
Are all 8 used in the landing ?
Why are the thrusters in each pair pointing in different directions ?
What happens if the thrust is not enough ?


Thanks.

Also I read the thrusters run at 107 %, which seems an odd figure to me.

Yes
For stability
Lithobraking

100% is the original engine rating. 107% represents a 7% performance increase over the original design spec.

I assume safe landing could be made with less than 100 % thrust, and any extra needed then would be available ?

Just going by the animation, all eight thrusters are firing at release from the back-shell but the four inner ones shutdown shortly thereafter. I only see the outer four thrusters firing from then on even at descent stage flyaway. I also don't see any movement of the nozzles so their orientation looks fixed. But all I know is what I see in the video.
Click to view attachment

This document has much of the info you require... it has been linked to before from this forum. Anyone serious about understanding MSL EDL would find it via google quite easily.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/41629

In particular

"Beginning at an altitude of approximately 50 m above the surface, the PDV begins the constant deceleration segment. During this sub-segment, the PDV is decelerated from 20 m/s to 0.75 m/s. This is done at a constant deceleration rate
roughly equivalent to 90% throttle setting......
Throttle Down
At this point in the landing sequence, more than half of the initial 400 kg of fuel has been consumed. In order to maintain thrust equal to weight, the MLEs would need to be throttled back to thrust levels on the order of 20-25%. Since the MLEs operate less efficiently at these throttle settings, four of the MLEs are throttled back to their near- shutdown condition of 1%. This allows the four remaining MLEs to function in the more efficient range of 50% throttle.
The transition from eight to four MLEs introduces disturbances to the system. Therefore, a 2.5 second period of time is allotted for the disturbances to settle allowing for predictable and stable conditions for the next major segment of the landing: Sky Crane."




Then the project doesn't get through Preliminary Design Review. That was about 5 years ago. What a strange question.

107% sounds like the Space Shuttle thrust level. Where did you read that the MSL MLE's would be running at 107%?

It was a wrong assumption by me the thrusters would be running full tilt all the time.

How could that possibly work anyway - the vehicle is always getting lighter and needs to come to a near hover for the sky-crane phase.

Even Phoenix, which had constant thrust engines, pulsed them to manage the total 'thrust' provided.

Looks like a lot of activity at the Cape today.

Mars Science Laboratory's page is slightly changed. Changes are not great, but quite important.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
If anyone did not noticed, here is the most important fragment of new page.
Click to view attachment
Seriously, I did not know that the launch date is so precisely determined. 118 days, when will it be? Nov 24 ?

Each launch opportunity, within the launch window, is calculated to the second, years in advance.

The first and Centaur stages of the Atlas-V rocket (to be used for the MSL launch) have arrived at KSC.
Pictures available at the KSC gallery page http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/

The EDL team's common area has two large countdown clocks, one to launch, one to landing. Both count down by seconds. Flick flick flick flick....

Just got to see and stand near MSL's engineering model at JPL and it is AWESOME! Beast of a thing.

Was interesting to find out that it's actually run off the batteries the whole time and the RTG just keeps the battery fully charged. Tour was by Scott Maxwell and one of the project scientists...the scientist said 14-16 years of operations is certainly possible...as is driving OUT of Gale. Now let's just launch and land this thing

Whose was this idea? Somebody we know here?
Bender as "Official Unofficial MSL Mascot" at KSC Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility.
Good choice, I love it !

Video of Curiosity flight hardware being prepared for launch at KSC with detailed views of the arm and mobility system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEhfEZZhKa0

Nah...They just have EXTREMELY good taste!!!

Due to longer tests of EDL phase during August the spacecraft will be encapsulated four days later in October than originally scheduled.
If launch timeline will be affected by that should be clear in 2 weeks.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew...amp;NewsID=1149

Atlas stacking underway: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/...ing/index1.html

MSL launch prep page now up on the KSC Media Gallery:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=237

Some really detailed photos there; thanks for the heads up. I'm just drooling over those close ups!

Interesting to note that that the two rockets in each pair are not quite pointed in the same direction; I would hazard a guess that the ones pointing slightly more "outward" are the ones used at the end (to minimize the blast effects on any surface dust).

And the wheels are covered in Mylar (or something similar to that) - I can't imagine they will be left like that; surely that must be to keep them as clean as possible until right before final packing up? If the covering is left on then it is bound to be shredded through use on Mars which would be very bad to then have lots of little pieces of insulation floating around.

Airbag

Exactly that - the proj. animation reflects that. What it doesn't show is the jolt the system gets transitioning from all 8 to just the final four in prep for the skycrane maneuver.

And, I think the mylar's coming off....probably just contamination control and esd protection.

Correct, see the latest mission update and this picture in full res. It´s maybe the last view of MSL before closing it completely into aeroshell.
All mylars from wheels and RBF covers are off the rover and sky crane.

Interesting to look a bit into the history there. I didn't know before, that MMRTG is at KSC since June already. (see page 11,12)

The Mylar is now removed. The photo on the JPL page linked below shows the wheels nice and black just as the rover is about to be enclosed by the heat shield:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-313

Atlas 5 getting ready: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/status.html

All MSL elements assembly (except MMRTG and some covers) is complete.



Do we know what's on schedule / preparation checklist for following 5 weeks prior to launch?
Thx

...And "The Thinker" from Rodin, meditating on MSL's future success, was there too (upper left corner)
Click to view attachment

Glad he's wearing a bunny suit over his traditional outfit!

John

Hopefully he's not thinking, "Now where did I leave that wrench?"

....no worries, Jonathon; the tool accountability procedures are undoubtedly VERY strict.

Even on aircraft (which you can actually fix later on, 'cause they come back) they are quite stringent; a lost tool is a BIG deal.

Surely the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator is already in place?

I don't think so.
See Emily' entry here: http://planetary.org/blog/article/00003217/

She wrote: The MMRTG won't be installed until just a couple of days before the launch, because it throws off so much heat. Once the rover has launched, a cooling system will vent the excess heat to space, but between now and then it takes a pretty powerful cooling system to keep the MMRTG from heating up the interior of the spacecraft to hazardous levels. I was told a while ago that they have three redundant cooling systems working to keep the spacecraft at a safe temperature between MMRTG installation and launch.

It gets installed, thru the fairing and the backshell, once the rocket is on the launch pad.

ah, wauw, thanks for the info.

Is the fairing hatch for the MMRTG seen in this view : http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images...11-7261-br2.jpg ?
(near top - gap in acoustic panelling)