Everything Space > Space Flight and Exploration

Spirit and Opportunity

(1/55) > >>

spacecat27:
(or MER-A and MER-B for those of us not so politically correct :) )

Figured we'd get a new tab going here since our Mars Race thread was getting long...........

Statistics dictate 2 out of 3 Mars probes will fail. ﾃつ With the apparent loss of Beagle 2, this means Spirit or Opportunity may also vanish.... but ONE of them WILL WORK!

Brief Spirit timetable for Saturday 3 JAN- all times PST:

8:14 PM Separation from cruise stage
8:29 PM Enters atmosphere
ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ 
ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ Separation from heat shield
ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ Inflation of air bags
ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ Retro fire
ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ  ﾃつ Backshell separation

8:35 PM Touchdown
8:45 PM Full Stop

JPL site for details: ﾃつ  http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Happy Landings, Spirit! ﾃつ :D

Won't it be really cool if by some strange turn of events--- they BOTH work!!!! ﾃつ [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

LunarOrbit:
I just noticed that the landing "pods" that the rovers are housed in don't have camera's like the one in 1997... that means we won't get video of the rovers driving around, except from their point of view. That's kind of disappointing, but I'll be happy seeing any new images of the martian surface I can get.

Orstio:
I think they were trying to avoid one of the issues with the Sagan Memorial Station, Kel.

http://www.oarval.org/MPFend.htm


--- Quote ---
After that, the lander was expected to begin getting colder at night and go through much deeper day-night thermal cycles. Eventually, the cold or the cycling would probably render the lander inoperable. According to Muirhead, it appears that this sequence of events has probably taken place. The health and status of the rover is also unknown, but since initiating its onboard backup operations plan a month ago, the rover is probably circling the vicinity of the lander, attempting to communicate with it.
--- End quote ---



It seems more logical, that if a rover is capable of outliving a stationary lander, just eliminate the stationary lander by including the extra hardware on the rover.

rcable1:
I sure hope that this one is as successful as intended.

Spacecat: Would you contact me via email? I have a question to ask.

rcable1@manandthemoon.com

Thanks

Thinker:

--- Quote ---
8:35 PM Touchdown
8:45 PM Full Stop
--- End quote ---



10 minutes of bouncing around?!?!?  With all those sharp pointy rocks littering the landscape? Them landers/rovers had bettered be *dang* tough.

My personal prediction:  Either both probes will succeed, or both will fail.

NASA keeps loosing Mars probes at this rate and they're gonna get cited for littering.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page