Could you provide a link ? I think Doug mentioned this before. I've only read that MAHLI would do time-lapse type frames...

Don't know if they plan to - but I would have thought they would... inflight-cal is a useful post-launch checkout. I wouldn't expect them to actuate the lens cover - but they could certainly power up the white-light LED's and take a picture inside the backshell. It would, I think, show the steering actuator for the front left wheel in its stowed position.



No - it's canned at 2rpm ( the nominal cruise spin rate) Remember, 'Eyes...' uses a combination of predicted and reconstructed data. Getting 'live' data thru from a flight project in these ITAR laden times is a mountain that even I'm not even going to attempt.



Using this image as reference:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/msl/20111110/pia15026-43.jpg

Assuming you meant the thruster at about 5 O'clock...that's not a thruster you're looking at. That's the star-tracker.

There are 8 thrusters - two clusters of 4. In that image they are at about 1 O'clock and 7 O'clock, covered with a red remove before flight fixture. They're tiny.




If you google MAHLI. The very first link takes you to the MSSS page that includes a link to 'reference material'.
Documents like this : http://www.msss.com/msl/mahli/references/E...l_MarsMicro.pdf : and this : http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2009/pdf/1197.pdf should fill you in. I've heard annecdotal comments that using MAHLI for DD surveys is possible, as it's the widest FOV camera (apart from MARDI, which obviously isn't going to be looking for DD's) with the movie ability. Mastcam 34 is roughly Pancam FOV, and Mastcam 100 about 1/3rd of that - whereas MAHLI is, if my math is right - about 30 x 23 deg FOV. The question would be - is it worth the large energy spend to move the arm into an elevated position for such a survey. It's not something I'd expect to see happening early on, that's for sure.

D

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/MAHLI/

Search down to "video". The 4 cameras (2 mastcam detector+electronics assemblies + MAHLI + MARDI) have common detectors and electronics, and thus many of the same capabilities--the filters on the mastcam and the capabilities enabled by their location on the rover being the obvious exceptions.

There are a lot of ideas to take advantage of this and the general ability to focus out to infinity. We'll have to figure out which are operationally feasible given the other desires for rover activities.

Doug has it right. The two thruster clusters on either side of the cruise stage used by MSL are nearly exactly the same used on Mars Pathfinder and MER.

Each thruster can provide about a pound of push when needed. This configuration is very handy (if I do say so myself ) for doing "balanced" turns(*) that do not impart unwanted changes in the trajectory. Considering MSL is so big compared with these other mars missions, it is amazing that these little thrusters are all we need to keep the solar arrays pointed roughly to the sun and the antennas roughly toward the Earth. It is even more amazing that they can also refine MSL's flight path to stay on course (obviously MSL's TCMs take more time to accelerate the same amount as MER or MPF because MSL is several times more massive).

* we use the word "turn" to denote a rotation of the vehicle, not a left or right turn of the flight path. The latter we call TCMs - trajectory correction maneuvers.

-Rob

PS Doug, Nice tool!!!!!

I love the idea of the rover doing an "arms-length self portrait" like we all do with our point-and-shoots. In color too! That will be something to look forward to (one of many things).

John

It took all the way until working on the MSL animation that I learned how TCM's are done when you're still spinning at 2rpm It's very elegant! It's like a brother on a merry-go-round trying to kick his sister each time he spins past her

It's why I wanted to have something more than '8 months later' - we cut it down a bit for the finished thing, earlier we had a burn from each cluster, at the same point in the rotation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...boyXQuUIw#t=41s

I noticed on a previous video that legs extended and rétros fired BEFORE been released from the parachutte! The link you provide here is both More recent and accurate.

Actually - the descent stage thrusters do start before sep from the backshell, but only at about 1%, so you wouldn't see anything.

The earlier animation was accurate at the time it was made. The decision to release the mobility system later in the sequence came between the old animation and the new one. (and during production of the new animation we were chasing the change from a hard drop, to a soft release and back to a hard drop..which is what we ended up with)

That "hard drop", with the rover falling out of the backshell in free-fall before the engines kick in, is the scariest part of the animation IMHO. I assume the purpose is to get some safe distance between the rover and the backshell.

And though it's been said many times before, it bears repeating- that's a fabulous piece of movie-making.

John

I read, where?, that, as soon as released, Curiosity performs a manoeuver to put a safe distance between backshell? and parachutte? Can't really notice in the movie...or didn't look properly. Can you confirm this, Doug?

From what I thought was a very informative article in the January 2011 issue of Aerospace America from the AIAA:

"Things begin to happen fast at backshell and parachute separation, but the first thing the sky crane and Curiosity do is nothing." "The contraption is programmed to free-fall for 1 sec to be well clear of the ... parachute canopy, risers, and backshell."

"Next (after MLE ignition) the vehicle maneuvers laterally to prevent having the backshell and parachute collide in midair or land on top of each other - the worst of luck 150 million miles from Earth."

This may have changed, although some kind of collision avoidance must still be included.

Ron

Ron - as far as I know, that article has it about right. (Apart from semantics of MLE fire up.... they're just warming up at 1% before the drop)

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/41629 was our go-to document for EDL



So there isn't a discreet avoidance maneuver as there was with PHX ( although PHX didn't actually need it's after all ) - but avoidance is part of the mix of the trajectory design from BSS to the CVP

Enough TLA's

Thanks John - the heavy lifting was Bohemian Grey - I just pointed them in the right direction. The BSS is the moment I'm most proud of...and showing it to the EDL team for the first time one the highlights of my short time at JPL so far. It involved a spontaneous high-five across a conference room table

Well I should have known better the tragectory maneuvers would not be done with a single thruster , confidence is restored .

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/...11201220357.htm

Almost entirely good news. The one small bit of unexpected news (nothing to worry about):

Seems to be regurgitating the same source:
http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/111201noburn.html

The Eyes on the Solar System make my IE 8 crash after a while, does anyone have the same problem ?, says "too many heap" entries.

No problems for me (that wouldn't be fixed by a better video card).

Hence the Beta label. It happens. Just don't use it too look at too much stuff before restarting it ( I know, sounds lame, but it does work ) It's a Unity plugin problem that we're looking at, but is mainly outside our control.

I'm a bit concerned about the reported reset of the MSL computer and safemode due to a star tracker. If this reset had happened in the middle of the upcoming trajectory correction burn, originally schedules a week or so post anomaly, wouldn't this have been disastrous? MSL is on a course to miss Mars by 38000 miles. Could it be that the delay of this course correction might have been influnenced by this potentially serioius malfunction? If I'm wrong, please write some words of assurance. Thanks

There is extra fuel aboard and my understanding is that due to a precise initial burn they have already delayed the first TCM by a month or so. Typically these craft are built with redundancies and contingencies built upon redundancies and contingencies. One common and predictable anomaly is not going to sink the entire mission. Chill.

Sorry for this being posted in the wrong forum, but the launch topic is closed. Did anyone notice the "umbilical" or "hose like" aperture that was still attached to the fairing during launch? It was about 10' - 15' ft from the top of the nose and protruded out about 3-4 feet? Not all cameras caught it, but it was clearly visible on the camera that showed the fairing separation, and another ground based camera. Once the fairing was ejected, the aperture went with it, so it became a mute point, but it sure looked like it was something that should have been left on the ground rather than fly with the vehicle. Did anyone see it? It obviously did not affect the trajectory as it was close to perfect.

Someone else pointed this out to me on the Atlas fairing on the Juno launch -- I think it's an Atlas V thing, and is normal.

Thanks, Emily!

Nope.

Thanks folks for the reassurance!

Yes, very visible indeed! Must be normal if already hapened before but quite a big device.

beside the fact that missing the first trajectory correction would still leave plenty of time to recover, I think star trackers are not used during burns in order not to mislead them into tracking particles or small debris.

I saw this too, but it confuses me. As I understand it, the initial burn aimed away from Mars and the 1st TCM was to aim at Mars. How could a precise burn aiming away from Mars affect the timing of the first TCM?

From http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/41883




My understanding is that TCM 1 was only ever about backing out injection errors...and as they are so small, there's no need for it.

At NASASpaceflight.com they have a drinking game going on for every time this question is being asked (ps: better to ask a question about it than just assuming it is an error):...
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27385.360



And as to what it actually is, it is called the LH2 vent fin.

Supremely uncatastrophical explanation here:

"Its a LH2 vent fin — a small pipe. The RL-10 engine, which powers the second stage of the rocket and is enclosed inside the fairing, uses liquid hydrogen as fuel. The LH2 is constantly boiling off producing gas, some of it is used to keep the tank pressurized, the rest must be vented overboard as a gas (it is not ignited) to avoid an explosive situation in the enclosed and confined interstage area while the RL-10 engine is inactive.
After the fairing is jettisoned, the H2 gas is simply vented directly to space causing the flare/glow that you see.
As far as any thrust is concerned resulting from the venting, it is trivial compared to the muscle of the RD-180 engine which powers the first stage — there is a lot of control authority from it."

Engineering drawings here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26327.345

Yeah, it really was a sweet launch...and major kudos again, Doug, for the Eyes On The Solar System sim of the journey.

Best...Christmas...toy...EVER!!!

Mr. Doug Djellison, any chance that you could expand your totally awesome sim of the MSL journey to include a realtime EDL phase so all of us can watch a second by second, sweat producing and heart stopping animation all the way to the touchdown. Just a suggestion. Thanks for all you do for this forum.

We hope to - but it's entirely a matter of budgets. I can't promise anything. I will say that it is highly unlikely that such a thing would be driven by realtime telemetry during EDL for a wide range of reasons to long to discuss here. It would likely be driven by a predicted series of events, with key moments triggered manually at JPL.

Doug, I didn't tell you yet but yes, your "sim" is one order of magnitude better than the one we had for MER...which was already awesome.
Regarding realtime (I was about to ask actually) we have some experience there with live comments been off set with the images (like "we should be on the ground by now..."), the parachutte deployment been "decided" by the real hardware and then been informed when it actually happened "parachutte deployed xxx second later than calculated). I guess we know this but anyway.
So, if buget's ok...we'll be glad to have us the feeling of been there instead of only eating peanuts.

You can now view MSL's current position in space on JPL's Solar System Simulator

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showac=1

MSL and inner planets. Long journey ahead.

For the impatient among us...

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showac=1

in very good agreement with the "countdown" clock at the MSL site (obviously!)

T +18 days - MSL has about 9% of its cruise done and starts to collect first scientific data - RAD instrument is on.

Where is Curiosity now? There's now a dedicated page on its mission website

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/

New sunspot 1387 erupted during the late hours of Christmas Day, producing an M4-class flare and hurling a Coronal Mass Ejection - CME toward Earth and Mars.

The CME is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 28th at 1200 UT and a direct hit to the planet Mars on Dec. 30th at 1800 UT.
Using onboard radiation sensors, NASA's Curiosity rover might be able to sense the CME when it passes the rover's spacecraft en route to Mars.

Here on Earth, NOAA forecasters estimate a 30-to-40% chance of geomagnetic storms on Dec. 28th when the CME and an incoming solar wind stream (unrelated to the CME) could arrive in quick succession. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Wednesday night.

How large would an event have to be to seriously impact the electronics on-board MSL? I remember how the MERs avoided the really big ones on their cruise around Halloween 2003, with lots of relief on the ground.

According to Curiosity and the Solar Storm, CMEs present no threat to MSL.

"With solar activity on the upswing it's only a matter of time before a CME engulfs the Mars-bound rover. That suits some researchers just fine. As Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in Boulder, Colorado, explains, 'We look forward to such encounters because Curiosity is equipped to study solar storms.'

Encounters with CMEs pose little danger to Curiosity. By the time a CME reaches the Earth-Mars expanse, it is spread so thin that it cannot truly buffet the spacecraft."

TCM-1 scheduled for Jan 11th, dv 5,5 m/s.
Then equipment tests for one week, starting from Jan 15th.
Let's see if we'll get some picture(s) from interior.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-004

TCM-1 completed successfully.
Rob Manning describing correction maneuver while almost whispering in mission control room. Nice

"By the time a CME reaches the Earth-Mars expanse, it is spread so thin that it cannot truly buffet the spacecraft"

I hope this also applies to MESSENGER!

Phil

According to AW&ST next trajectory correction is scheduled on March 26th

Not sure if mentioned here before, but radio amateurs from Germany, Bochum have received signals (X-band telemetry) from MSL last year.
It should be the first reception of the MSL outside the official NASA DSN and USN tracking station at Dongara, Australia.

http://www.uk.amsat.org/2578

Software fix for Star Tracker problem.

Tracker

The computer that received the software fix, is it the sole computer for MSL or was it located on the cruise stage, decent stage, or the lander? If there are separate computers, will they also need a software fix for the same type of problem?

MSL has 2 identical main computers which control all aspects of flight, EDL and the surface operations, one is a backup. There is also a fly away controller on the decent stage which enables the descent stage to keep flying away.

So no other computers need updating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory