6 ms·

Photo shows Mars rover descent

187 points by zoowar 14y ago

danielsju6 14y ago
Larger photo from NASA here, http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_full.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_...
- biomechanica 14y ago
  Every single time I look at images captured by the rovers on Mars, it throws a wave of tingles through my spine. The technology and brain power to achieve this picture, the landing, engineering and the science to come is so mind blowing to me that I almost feel drained! Such a massive amount of awesomeness.
- sek 14y ago
  is there one without the white box?
  - pfraze 14y ago
    Would make a great desktop
    - skeletonjelly 14y ago
      In the meantime, you can cut one from this monster image http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689 http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689
  - 3JPLW 14y ago
    I've been looking for one as well. It appears as though they're still working on releasing more of the images. The HiRISE news release[1] now contains a (currently broken) link[2] to a 540MB non-map projected "descent long view." I imagine this is the complete scan that HiRISE took of the image, and that there is distortion due to the CCD layout in the satellite (hence non-map projected). But that's purely a guess. They say: Descent long view[2] (Note: this file is over 540MB. It is non-map projected but rotated so that north is approximately up. This file is not annotated, but MSL is in the mid-to-lower right-hand side. The CCDs do not match well at their edges due to the unique image geometry; geometrically-corrected images would be available in a few days.) 1: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/msl-descent.php http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/msl-descent.php 2: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_028256_9022_RED.NOMAP-long.tif http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_02... (WARNING: 540MB TIFF, but link is broken at time of posting)
    - epoxyhockey 14y ago
      Your 2nd link works now and the image is without the white box! Here is a 1600x1200 version: http://i.imgur.com/708I5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/708I5.jpg There is a seam just to the left of the package, which is why NASA presented the image with the object off-center, and why I cropped it that way as well.
benwerd 14y ago
NASA is a wonder of our modern age. If we're going to have a planned economy (and we are), let's do it through science, technology and knowledge rather than military power.
- joering2 14y ago
  700B for DOD, versus 8B NASA. 87x difference. If NASA would have 87x more money, by now we would have a Martian base and most likely missions where civilians could buy a ticket and fly there for a honeymoon.
  - JVIDEL 14y ago
    Yeah funny how much we spend on stuff that blows up (or never does because it's never used and we have to spend even more billions dismantling them).
  - cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
    But at the same time the USA spends more money on space programs than all other countries combined.
    - jemeshsu 14y ago
      Guess this is because no other country has that level of expertise of space program like US.
      - jcnnghm 14y ago
        Your causality presumption may be reversed.
    - huhtenberg 14y ago
      It could simply mean that running space programs in the USA is far more costly than in other countries. Someone did say that NASA of the recent age is less about research and more about massive employment.
joering2 14y ago
it says: "nuclear battery". it looks small. can someone point me to some more details? Obviously if they decided its fine to shoot this thing into the space (go through Earth atmosphere) - it should mean that there was no environmental danger for this thing to go bad?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- warfangle 14y ago
  It uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Many spacecraft use them. The Apollo 13 RTG is currently at rest on the ocean floor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Nuclear batteries are unlike what we normally think of as "nuclear reactors". They both use heat, but nuclear batteries do not bring the fuel to criticality (in other words, no chain reaction). This limits their power output obviously, but they are pretty damn reliable in return. The one in Curiosity seems to have 5kg of Plutonium 238. I don't know what kind of containment it has to protect it during launch, but I assume it is fairly substantial. Nuclear batteries are not something NASA is new to, they have used them many times before, including in the Voyager probes. Interestingly, nuclear reactors have been put into space too, by both the US and the Soviets. There have been incidents but nothing that I would really call a disaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  It's an RTG, it uses the heat created by decay of radioactive isotopes to drive a thermocouple. These things have been designed to be incredibly safe, capable of surviving an explosion of their launch vehicle and remaining intact, for example. But even should their protective capsule be breached the radioactive material is in a ceramic (oxidized) form in spheres. If you cracked open an RTG and threw the insides into a very hot fire nothing would happen, you could just come by and collect the intact ceramic spheres after they'd cooled.
missing_cipher 14y ago
The coordination of all this just blows my mind.
outworlder 14y ago
Anyone has any background info on that picture? How did the MRO lock on the descending rover? Did NASA feed it the correct coordinates beforehand, or it had to somehow autonomously acquire the rover? I suspect the later is possible, as there might be radio contact available in that stage of the reentry, but I really have no idea on how it was actually accomplished.
- markbnine 14y ago
  Here is a link to a Nature blog with some info from Alfred McEwen, the PI on HiRISE: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-a-curiosity-close-up.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-...
timkeller 14y ago
NASA is just rocking this mission. Very impressed.
matt2000 14y ago
This to me feels really sci-fi since "we sent a rover to mars and another thing we already had hanging around took a picture of it." That feels pretty neat.
startupfounder 14y ago
It looks like they had the coordinates of the decent path of Curiosity, knew where to point the camera, took a large picture from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) like they did with Phoenix [1] and then when that picture hit human eyes NASA cropped it. That being said, if they have multiple HiRISE images of the decent[2] I think that would make one amazing film. Anyone know the FPS of HiRISE? [1]http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/08/PhoenixHiRise.jpg http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/08/PhoenixHiRise.jpg [2]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182_62081181.jpg http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182...
- jimktrains2 14y ago
  In the article it says that they basically took the only picture they could. A second later or sooner and they'd have seen a landscape only.
  - startupfounder 14y ago
    Looks like there was quite a lot of time for taking pictures[1], 172 second to be exact between parachute deployment and touchdown. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-43_946-710.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-4...
    - 3JPLW 14y ago
      Not really. The MRO is moving fast and at a relatively low orbit. "If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."[1] [1]: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jessriedel 14y ago
My impression is that they only got the opportunity for one shot with the HiRISE camera, but that they were going for a view of the sky-crane in action. Did that turn out not to be possible? Do they have a picture of the sky-crane from one of the lower-resolution cameras in orbit?

187 points by zoowar 14y ago

Larger photo from NASA here, http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_full.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_...

biomechanica 14y ago
Every single time I look at images captured by the rovers on Mars, it throws a wave of tingles through my spine. The technology and brain power to achieve this picture, the landing, engineering and the science to come is so mind blowing to me that I almost feel drained! Such a massive amount of awesomeness.
sek 14y ago
is there one without the white box?
- pfraze 14y ago
  Would make a great desktop
  - skeletonjelly 14y ago
    In the meantime, you can cut one from this monster image http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689 http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689
- 3JPLW 14y ago
  I've been looking for one as well. It appears as though they're still working on releasing more of the images. The HiRISE news release[1] now contains a (currently broken) link[2] to a 540MB non-map projected "descent long view." I imagine this is the complete scan that HiRISE took of the image, and that there is distortion due to the CCD layout in the satellite (hence non-map projected). But that's purely a guess. They say: Descent long view[2] (Note: this file is over 540MB. It is non-map projected but rotated so that north is approximately up. This file is not annotated, but MSL is in the mid-to-lower right-hand side. The CCDs do not match well at their edges due to the unique image geometry; geometrically-corrected images would be available in a few days.) 1: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/msl-descent.php http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/msl-descent.php 2: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_028256_9022_RED.NOMAP-long.tif http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_02... (WARNING: 540MB TIFF, but link is broken at time of posting)
  - epoxyhockey 14y ago
    Your 2nd link works now and the image is without the white box! Here is a 1600x1200 version: http://i.imgur.com/708I5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/708I5.jpg There is a seam just to the left of the package, which is why NASA presented the image with the object off-center, and why I cropped it that way as well.

benwerd 14y ago

NASA is a wonder of our modern age. If we're going to have a planned economy (and we are), let's do it through science, technology and knowledge rather than military power.

joering2 14y ago
700B for DOD, versus 8B NASA. 87x difference. If NASA would have 87x more money, by now we would have a Martian base and most likely missions where civilians could buy a ticket and fly there for a honeymoon.
- JVIDEL 14y ago
  Yeah funny how much we spend on stuff that blows up (or never does because it's never used and we have to spend even more billions dismantling them).
- cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
  But at the same time the USA spends more money on space programs than all other countries combined.
  - jemeshsu 14y ago
    Guess this is because no other country has that level of expertise of space program like US.
    - jcnnghm 14y ago
      Your causality presumption may be reversed.
  - huhtenberg 14y ago
    It could simply mean that running space programs in the USA is far more costly than in other countries. Someone did say that NASA of the recent age is less about research and more about massive employment.

joering2 14y ago

it says: "nuclear battery". it looks small. can someone point me to some more details? Obviously if they decided its fine to shoot this thing into the space (go through Earth atmosphere) - it should mean that there was no environmental danger for this thing to go bad?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
warfangle 14y ago
It uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Many spacecraft use them. The Apollo 13 RTG is currently at rest on the ocean floor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...
jlgreco 14y ago
Nuclear batteries are unlike what we normally think of as "nuclear reactors". They both use heat, but nuclear batteries do not bring the fuel to criticality (in other words, no chain reaction). This limits their power output obviously, but they are pretty damn reliable in return. The one in Curiosity seems to have 5kg of Plutonium 238. I don't know what kind of containment it has to protect it during launch, but I assume it is fairly substantial. Nuclear batteries are not something NASA is new to, they have used them many times before, including in the Voyager probes. Interestingly, nuclear reactors have been put into space too, by both the US and the Soviets. There have been incidents but nothing that I would really call a disaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT
InclinedPlane 14y ago
It's an RTG, it uses the heat created by decay of radioactive isotopes to drive a thermocouple. These things have been designed to be incredibly safe, capable of surviving an explosion of their launch vehicle and remaining intact, for example. But even should their protective capsule be breached the radioactive material is in a ceramic (oxidized) form in spheres. If you cracked open an RTG and threw the insides into a very hot fire nothing would happen, you could just come by and collect the intact ceramic spheres after they'd cooled.

missing_cipher 14y ago

The coordination of all this just blows my mind.

outworlder 14y ago

Anyone has any background info on that picture? How did the MRO lock on the descending rover? Did NASA feed it the correct coordinates beforehand, or it had to somehow autonomously acquire the rover? I suspect the later is possible, as there might be radio contact available in that stage of the reentry, but I really have no idea on how it was actually accomplished.

markbnine 14y ago
Here is a link to a Nature blog with some info from Alfred McEwen, the PI on HiRISE: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-a-curiosity-close-up.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-...

timkeller 14y ago

NASA is just rocking this mission. Very impressed.

matt2000 14y ago

This to me feels really sci-fi since "we sent a rover to mars and another thing we already had hanging around took a picture of it." That feels pretty neat.

startupfounder 14y ago

It looks like they had the coordinates of the decent path of Curiosity, knew where to point the camera, took a large picture from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) like they did with Phoenix [1] and then when that picture hit human eyes NASA cropped it. That being said, if they have multiple HiRISE images of the decent[2] I think that would make one amazing film. Anyone know the FPS of HiRISE? [1]http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/08/PhoenixHiRise.jpg http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/08/PhoenixHiRise.jpg [2]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182_62081181.jpg http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182...

jimktrains2 14y ago
In the article it says that they basically took the only picture they could. A second later or sooner and they'd have seen a landscape only.
- startupfounder 14y ago
  Looks like there was quite a lot of time for taking pictures[1], 172 second to be exact between parachute deployment and touchdown. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-43_946-710.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-4...
  - 3JPLW 14y ago
    Not really. The MRO is moving fast and at a relatively low orbit. "If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."[1] [1]: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jessriedel 14y ago

My impression is that they only got the opportunity for one shot with the HiRISE camera, but that they were going for a view of the sky-crane in action. Did that turn out not to be possible? Do they have a picture of the sky-crane from one of the lower-resolution cameras in orbit?