** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

I find those images and footage astonishing. This really is stuff to stir the imagination. At it's closest to the earth Mars is nigh on 34 million miles away and this has landed less than 2km from the bullseye. From what I understand it's own terrain avoidance system guided it to the most suitable spot and it was within 2 degs of dead level when touched down. The imagery would not look out of place in Sci-fi movie such is it's scope and clarity. Who'd have thought dangling the lander from a sky-crane would be the way to go? Even now while it's sitting there sending these sounds and images back to earth it's charging the batteries of it's flying drone... Boom... Mind blown.:)
I do wonder about the "tweets from Mars" Whether it's some clever algorithm generating them from the lander, or some bloke sat in a cupboard with his I-phone at NASA/JPL

I'm old enough to have witnessed the Apollo landings and what we are seeing now is a million miles away from those grainy black and white images. Hopefully it will be sending data back for years to come. I wonder what the odds are on it discovering evidence of previous life on Mars? They've certainly narrowed down where they want to look with this mission.
 
Didn't yet see this one posted. My new background. :-)
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DampDog said:
The imagery would not look out of place in Sci-fi movie such is it's scope and clarity. Who'd have thought dangling the lander from a sky-crane would be the way to go? Even now while it's sitting there sending these sounds and images back to earth it's charging the batteries of it's flying drone... Boom... Mind blown.:)
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Yeah, the Skycrane is real innovation, the product of solid thinking, rigorous testing - and risk taking, it's arguably one of the most technologically impressive things humanity has every produced. I can imagine people at NASA spitballing at whiteboards over mechanisms for getting the rover down safely, and some mad idea about a hovering platform that lowers the rover down on a cable, being laughed at... then when people thought about it and started making models and prototypes, it turned into a real thing.

I also like to think about how machines like this will influence future propulsion systems, guidance tech, and other stuff... Remarkable.
 
I do recall one idea they had which a NASA engineer talked about way back was an airbag like inflatable cocoon that surrounded the rover just before it hits the ground and basically rolls to a stopas it slowly deflates but this sky crane is far more impressive :D
 
DampDog said:
I do wonder about the "tweets from Mars" Whether it's some clever algorithm generating them from the lander, or some bloke sat in a cupboard with his I-phone at NASA/JPL
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You mean the @NASAPersevere account?
Pretty sure I saw an article that said it was just a team in Nasa that do it, sadly.
Would think it should be possible to send them from the lander though, at least technically?
 
ajf said:
You mean the @NASAPersevere account?
Pretty sure I saw an article that said it was just a team in Nasa that do it, sadly.
Would think it should be possible to send them from the lander though, at least technically?
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Yeh I would have thought so to but I suspect the bandwidth is like gold dust for them.
 
mrk said:
^ Don't forget that Mars was once like Earth so it makes total sense that the current landscape resembles an Earthly desert wasteland. This rover will be drilling into rocks and underground to see if there's signs of previous life (or maybe current) so the science they do will definitely be highly interesting and I am certain we will have plenty f big news from this project in coming months.
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It's going to take 10+ years to get the samples :(
 
It will be doing analysis of the samples onboard though and sending the data back. The physical samples will take 10+ years yeah but we will have some answers in coming months.
 
Hopefully the tests will vindicate Dr Levin


Imagine getting scientists to devise a test, sending that test to Mars, running that test and then deciding the test was wrong because the results didn't go the way you hoped
 
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