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>Now that Zhurong has got down successfully, scientists will try to get at least 90 Martian days of service out of it, studying the local geology. 90 days, doe
by ClosedPistachio 5y ago
>Now that Zhurong has got down successfully, scientists will try to get at least 90 Martian days of service out of it, studying the local geology.
90 days, doesn't that seem short?
- hoten 5y agoSpace missions like to set easier to accomplish goals. Anything after that is viewed as a bonus. US space program did the same with the recent Mars mission.
- jagger27 5y agoSpirit and Opportunity both had 90-day official mission lengths as well and look how long they lasted. I think this is a simple case of underpromise and overdeliver.
- yumraj 5y agoAh that explains where the 90 days in the Chinese rover comes from. It’s per the original specs.
- montereynack 5y ago“Those darn Chinese! They’re also launching their projectiles at 45 degree angles! They’re obviously copying the techniques we invented when the laws of physics first came into being!” That’s you. That’s how you sound.
- azurezyq 5y agoOpportunity also has a 90 sols designed life. Designed, designed.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoIf you design something so that it has a 99% chance of lasting 90 days, there's a pretty good chance it'll last 6 months or even a year. Especially since failures tend to follow a bathtub curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoAll things considered, 90 days is pretty good for how harsh of an environment Mars can be. Also, there are dozens of ways to make the mission last longer but no ways of accomplishing that without adding more weight.
- k_sze 5y agoThis makes me think about the way we define “harsh”. What’s actually so harsh about Mars? Let’s imagine some alien civilization tries to send a probe to Earth, they’d be saying things like: “Dude, that atmosphere is gonna burn our shit up before it even touches ground, if we’re not careful.” “Holy shit, what are these huge animals with long noses and big ears? They’re gonna destroy our probe if they walk over it.” “Let’s avoid landing in that area where those bipedals are still waging war.” “The rain is acidic! WT bloody F?” “Ugh, those black-and-white swimming things seem like assholes who like to play with their food, let’s steer clear of them.”
- tomrod 5y agoMost of the dust is extremely sharp, not having water break up the edges.
- dandelany 5y agoNo it’s not - aeolian processes do a fine job of weathering it. It is very fine dust, and somewhat toxic, but it is not sharp like lunar regolith is. https://medium.com/@adammann930/the-problem-with-dust-on-the-moon-and-mars-2a916162b864 https://medium.com/@adammann930/the-problem-with-dust-on-the...
- tomrod 5y agoToday I learned! I thought it was effectively lunar regolith.
- bserge 5y agoWell, yeah, their technology would be mostly adapted for their home planet, Earth could be very harsh.
- zapdrive 5y agoIf it is anything like other Chinese goods, i doubt it will even last 90 days. Lol. But I'm sure the Amazon listing for the probe would have 100k positive reviews, even though they probably only made a couple of these.
- Dah00n 5y agoThey said the same thing of US goods way back in the day, later also about Japanese goods. The "good goods" are also made in China today. It is so widespread that it can be hard to even get English or German documentation on electronic parts these days. Please don't take part in nationalism. It's not very interesting.