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It's the landing sequence on this that has me spooked. Not that I doubt the engineering behind it but wow, to put something this heavy on the planet they had t
by 51Cards 14y ago
It's the landing sequence on this that has me spooked. Not that I doubt the engineering behind it but wow, to put something this heavy on the planet they had to come up with a fairly complex sequence as the 7 Minutes of Terror video explains. I'm sure it's been checked and rechecked but I don't think I'd want to have to go through the stress of waiting for final confirmation.
If they pull this off then my extreme kudos to the team, and I very eagerly await a new set of eyes on MARS. I couldn't get enough of what came out of every previous rover. Maybe I missed my calling. :)
- joshlegs 14y agoI'm pretty stoked about the potential video, myself.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoIf it works they will be heroes, if it fails there will be a lot of questioning of their wisdom. Very risky plan in a lot of senses. Not to say it's not the right one, but man are they putting a lot on the line.
- sp332 14y agoI'm sure the engineers have been haunted by the Genesis landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_%28spacecraft%29#Recovery_phase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_%28spacecraft%29#Recov...
- hrayr 14y agoThey had a similarly remarkable landing for the Mars Exploration Rovers. I happened to be interning at JPL with the MER EDL team when these rovers landed in 2004, and the level of precision and excitement was absolutely amazing. MER had 6 minutes of terror, and they do get some data during these 6 minutes, it's just they can't do anything about it because the round trip communication delay at the time was about 20 minutes. I remember one of the engineers comparing the precision needed for launching and landing a Rover on Mars to hitting a golf ball in California and landing a hole in one in Florida. Here's the MER EDL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g