Curiosity jet quadcopter on mars

[Mslater]

Due to land early this morning.

Anyone following it ?

[URL="http://m.voanews.com/1455736.html"]VOA Mobile - English[/URL]

[url]http://www.voanews.com/content/nasa-confident-anxious-ahead-of-mars-rover-landing/1455736.html[/url]

[callum]

[QUOTE=Mslater;881903]Due to land early this morning.

Anyone following it ?

[URL="http://m.voanews.com/1455736.html"]VOA Mobile - English[/URL]

[url=http://www.voanews.com/content/nasa-confident-anxious-ahead-of-mars-rover-landing/1455736.html]NASA: Confident, Anxious Ahead of Mars Rover Landing[/url][/QUOTE]

Yup following it very closely,

Shall be watching the landing live via NASA TV,

[helimadness]

Thats pushing FPV to the limits. 566 million kms away. Amazing stuff

[callum]

[url=http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/nasatv/]Mars Live - Watch Curiousity's Landing[/url]

Also, running the "Live" Simulator, on Eyes on the Solar System... Pretty awesomes!

[url=http://eyes.nasa.gov/player/]Eyes on the Solar System[/url]

[trexamanic]

landed safely. wow very interesting.

[Gav]

yeah - was expecting to hear bad news on the telly this morning, but NO it landed safely. Amazing!
[IMG]http://img.tapatalk.com/d569604f-6675-0e2b.jpg[/IMG]

[helimadness]

So what do they do with the Nuclear reactor that is powering it when they have finished. I understand it is going to be there for a couple of years till it runs out of what ever makes it go. Guessing there are no plans to bring it back. So then what??? let it melt down and polite Mars.

Woo Hoo we found new life..... Bugger we killed it all.....

[callum]

[QUOTE=helimadness;881935]So what do they do with the Nuclear reactor that is powering it when they have finished. I understand it is going to be there for a couple of years till it runs out of what ever makes it go. Guessing there are no plans to bring it back. So then what??? let it melt down and polite Mars.

Woo Hoo we found new life..... Bugger we killed it all.....[/QUOTE]

It's get's it's power source from decaying plutonium-238 - natural heat converted to electricity. It will be powered for more then just a couple of years. Waste heat can be used via pipes to power other onboard systems freeing up resources for missions critical services.

The mission isn't to find life as such on Mars, it's there to find out if it could have sustained life in the past.

[milly0812]

[QUOTE=callum;881946] mission isn't to find life as such on Mars, it's there to find out if it could have sustained life in the past.[/QUOTE]

But why? I can see that man is depleting this planet of its finite resources and may need to find another planet to do the same on but what use is millions or billions of dollars to find out if mars could have supported life in the past ?????? I don't get it

[callum]

[QUOTE=milly0812;881957]But why? I can see that man is depleting this planet of its finite resources and may need to find another planet to do the same on but what use is millions or billions of dollars to find out if mars could have supported life in the past ?????? I don't get it[/QUOTE]

The clue is in the rovers name.. "Curiosity"

Why do we unearth the past of the Earth? Or why do we choose to go East instead of West.

It isn't just to see if it could have sustained life although it's largely based upon that, But here are the goals:

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=sans-serif]The MSL mission has four scientific goals:[/FONT][/COLOR]
[LIST=1][*]Determine whether Mars could ever have supported [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars"]life[/URL].[*]Study the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars"]climate of Mars[/URL].[*]Study the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Mars"]geology of Mars[/URL].[*]Plan for a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars"]human mission to Mars[/URL].[/LIST]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=sans-serif]To contribute to these goals, MSL has six main scientific objectives:[/FONT][/COLOR]
[LIST=1][*]Determine the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineralogical"]mineralogical[/URL] composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.[*]Attempt to detect chemical building blocks of life ([URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosignature"]biosignatures[/URL]).[*]Interpret the processes that have formed and modified [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_(geology)"]rocks[/URL] and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil"]soils[/URL].[*]Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars"]Martian atmospheric[/URL] evolution processes.[*]Determine present state, distribution, and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrology"]cycling of water[/URL] and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide"]carbon dioxide[/URL].[*]Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_cosmic_ray"]galactic radiation[/URL], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_radiation"]cosmic radiation[/URL], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_proton_event"]solar proton events[/URL] and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron#High-energy_neutrons"]secondary neutrons[/URL].[/LIST]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=sans-serif]As part of its exploration, it is measuring the radiation exposure in the interior of the spacecraft as it travels to Mars, important data for a future [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars"]manned mission[/URL].[/FONT][/COLOR]

[dani_r]

Read about this yesterday on BBC news. Following with interest! That skycrane thing is crazy!

[callum]

[QUOTE=dani_r;881959]That skycrane thing is crazy![/QUOTE]

Crazy... But worked flawless!

[Swashbuckler]

Does anybody have a link to the skycrane being tested, ie hovering using rockets with the rover suspended. It's one of the things that interests me the most and an amazing feat of engineering when you consider the rover is the size of a car. Would have thought it would be one of the top shown videos but can't find anything. Or does Mars have lower gravity than Earth meaning it couldn't be fully tested here?

Extremely annoyed with the NASA guy on the video who says something along the lines of "USA represented by NASA are a small corner of humanity that are doing stuff, and WE now have a priceless asset on Mars" Excuse me? If you hadn't joined in the war right at the end so that you could have the spoils in the shape of rocket scientists such as Von Braun (responsible for the V2 and doodlebug which killed thousands of humans) you wouldn't have such an advanced space program. Indeed it takes questions from journalists for them to even talk about the scientists and engineers from other countries who helped make this mission possible and so far successful. If they think this is about America and not humanity, they have a bizarrely blinkered and frankly redneck view.

But I can't wait to see more, wonder if they will bump into John Carter.