6 ms·

NASA's Next Mars Lander to Begin Construction

48 points by dsil 12y ago

trose 12y ago
Dear NASA, Can we get some of this instrumentation in Kerbal Space Program ASAP?
orenmazor 12y ago
Is there anywhere I can go to actually see NASA's (or CSA or ESA)'s "Lessons Learned"? I'd love to track how they've evolved different characteristics of spaceflight/rovers. to improve my KSP game, obviously.
- markbnine 12y ago
  Beyond Apollo: http://www.wired.com/category/beyondapollo/ http://www.wired.com/category/beyondapollo/
Jemaclus 12y ago
Serious question that people here may or may not know the answer to. They keep making Mars Landers. With all the tech advances in the drone world, what are the pros/cons of a Mars Drone that flies around instead of rolling around on wheels?
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  The air is very very thin. It could not dig or brush or use a microscope or put the samples in an oven or chemical analyzers. Also we already have good overhead images from satellites. Planes have been proposed nevertheless.
  - jk4930 12y ago
    Zeppelins and balloons have also been proposed.
  - Jemaclus 12y ago
    Sure, but I mean, images from 50 feet away are gonna be higher resolution than images from 2 miles away, yes? So it seems to me that if they could get some drones flying around, they could do some cool things like collect samples for a regular Mars Lander to process or get higher res photos or do some spectrometry or something over a wider range than a lander can do... right?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- DanBC 12y ago
  They have sent a bunch of satellites. Don't they count? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellite...
  - Jemaclus 12y ago
    Well, we have a lot of satellites around earth, but we still have a lot of uses for drones, right? So I guess the answer is no, they don't count for this particular question... :)
- Serow225 12y ago
  Have I got a link for you, my friend! :) http://x-plane.com/adventures/mars.html http://x-plane.com/adventures/mars.html
- neurobro 12y ago
  I think flying drone explorers would make more sense on Venus instead of Mars. They could spend most of the time connected to solar-cell-covered balloons 50km above the surface and occasionally dip down into the oven for a brief look.
- curtis 12y ago
  There was at least one serious proposal for a Mars airplane: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) NASA link: http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/ http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Regional-scale_Environmental_Survey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Regional-scale_Environme... Robert Zubrin also wrote a proposal for a nuclear powered "hopper" that would use CO2 from the Martian atmosphere: NUCLEAR ROCKET USING INDIGENOUS MARTIAN FUEL [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov]/19920001880.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov]/199200...
  - Gravityloss 12y ago
    Providing energy for the aircraft is a problem as well. Satellites just can keep going on, but a hydrazine fueled or battery powered plane would have a mission length counted in hours. With 1% air density and 40% gravity, I get about a factor of six speed requirement compared to earth. Have to stay below the 240 m/s speed of sound. If you had a battery plane with solar panels that could land to gather energy, then it could fly again, but the landing and takeoff might be extremely hazardous, with rocks and very high speeds. Edit: Here's a good pdf presenting calculations about these issues, it also looks at pixel smear because of the high speed: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78.82&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78....
    - curtis 12y ago
      ARES was only expected to fly about an hour, which does seem pretty pointless to me. A rocket propelled Mars plane is hampered by its need to carry oxidizer as well as fuel. But it seems like you still ought to be able to get multiple hours of flight out of it -- the Rutan Voyager didn't need to carry oxygen, but on the other hand it flew for nine days. Another alternative is that you can use CO2 as an oxidizer -- Magnesium, for example, will burn in a C02 environment. Building a jet engine that runs on Magnesium is probably a non-trivial exercise, though! If you really want to build a Mars airplane, I think nuclear is clearly the way to go. I don't know how you would test it though, since we tend to frown on running unshielded nuclear reactors these days.
    - 12y ago
- mturmon 12y ago
  Good search terms for this would be "mars aerobot". This turns up lots of good links for LTA (lighter than air) mission concepts, and a couple of offhand mentions of HTA concepts. These are all separate from the ARES concept that is already linked nearby. Here's some examples: [a long time ago, but serious] http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17308/1/99-0751.pdf http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17308/1/99... [Venus, or maybe Titan] http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/up-up-and-away-with-aerobots/ http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/up-up-and-away-with-a... [Mars, with Earth demo] http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2005/session_10b/3_behar_10b.pdf http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2005/session_1... I learned that the Soviet Union used two small balloons to explore Venus in 1985. edited to add: I noticed a comprehensive design study for ARES which covers a lot of reasoning for tradeoffs: http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-aiaa-2003-6578.pdf http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-aiaa-2003-6578.pdf
- BrandonMarc 12y ago
  Randall Munroe has a nice writeup about flying on Mars, here. Short answer: the air is so thin, a drone would have to fly at Mach 1 just to remain airborne. Also, because the air is so thin, at that speed the plane would be darn near impossible to turn: the plane itself would rotate but not change course. http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ Now zeppelins, on the other hand ...
  - omilu 12y ago
    "Now zeppelins, on the other hand ..." wouldn't zeppelins be disadvantage by the thin air as well?
  - Jemaclus 12y ago
    Awesome. I love Randall's stuff.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nsxwolf 12y ago
Why won't they send something that can directly detect the existence of microbes? It seems they're always after indirect signs. The focus this time seems purely geological in nature.
omilu 12y ago
I'm assuming space x would provide the launch services? Does Nasa even do rockets to outer space anymore?
- rzimmerman 12y ago
  NASA doesn't do manned launches at the moment. There are several other providers for unmanned launches (including for Mars payloads). SpaceX has never done anything beyond Earth orbit, so they'd be an unlikely choice for this.

48 points by dsil 12y ago

trose 12y ago

Dear NASA, Can we get some of this instrumentation in Kerbal Space Program ASAP?

Is there anywhere I can go to actually see NASA's (or CSA or ESA)'s "Lessons Learned"? I'd love to track how they've evolved different characteristics of spaceflight/rovers. to improve my KSP game, obviously.

markbnine 12y ago
Beyond Apollo: http://www.wired.com/category/beyondapollo/ http://www.wired.com/category/beyondapollo/

Jemaclus 12y ago

Serious question that people here may or may not know the answer to. They keep making Mars Landers. With all the tech advances in the drone world, what are the pros/cons of a Mars Drone that flies around instead of rolling around on wheels?

Gravityloss 12y ago
The air is very very thin. It could not dig or brush or use a microscope or put the samples in an oven or chemical analyzers. Also we already have good overhead images from satellites. Planes have been proposed nevertheless.
- jk4930 12y ago
  Zeppelins and balloons have also been proposed.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Sure, but I mean, images from 50 feet away are gonna be higher resolution than images from 2 miles away, yes? So it seems to me that if they could get some drones flying around, they could do some cool things like collect samples for a regular Mars Lander to process or get higher res photos or do some spectrometry or something over a wider range than a lander can do... right?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 12y ago
They have sent a bunch of satellites. Don't they count? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellite...
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Well, we have a lot of satellites around earth, but we still have a lot of uses for drones, right? So I guess the answer is no, they don't count for this particular question... :)
Serow225 12y ago
Have I got a link for you, my friend! :) http://x-plane.com/adventures/mars.html http://x-plane.com/adventures/mars.html
neurobro 12y ago
I think flying drone explorers would make more sense on Venus instead of Mars. They could spend most of the time connected to solar-cell-covered balloons 50km above the surface and occasionally dip down into the oven for a brief look.
curtis 12y ago
There was at least one serious proposal for a Mars airplane: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) NASA link: http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/ http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Regional-scale_Environmental_Survey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Regional-scale_Environme... Robert Zubrin also wrote a proposal for a nuclear powered "hopper" that would use CO2 from the Martian atmosphere: NUCLEAR ROCKET USING INDIGENOUS MARTIAN FUEL [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov]/19920001880.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov]/199200...
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  Providing energy for the aircraft is a problem as well. Satellites just can keep going on, but a hydrazine fueled or battery powered plane would have a mission length counted in hours. With 1% air density and 40% gravity, I get about a factor of six speed requirement compared to earth. Have to stay below the 240 m/s speed of sound. If you had a battery plane with solar panels that could land to gather energy, then it could fly again, but the landing and takeoff might be extremely hazardous, with rocks and very high speeds. Edit: Here's a good pdf presenting calculations about these issues, it also looks at pixel smear because of the high speed: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78.82&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78....
  - curtis 12y ago
    ARES was only expected to fly about an hour, which does seem pretty pointless to me. A rocket propelled Mars plane is hampered by its need to carry oxidizer as well as fuel. But it seems like you still ought to be able to get multiple hours of flight out of it -- the Rutan Voyager didn't need to carry oxygen, but on the other hand it flew for nine days. Another alternative is that you can use CO2 as an oxidizer -- Magnesium, for example, will burn in a C02 environment. Building a jet engine that runs on Magnesium is probably a non-trivial exercise, though! If you really want to build a Mars airplane, I think nuclear is clearly the way to go. I don't know how you would test it though, since we tend to frown on running unshielded nuclear reactors these days.
  - 12y ago
mturmon 12y ago
Good search terms for this would be "mars aerobot". This turns up lots of good links for LTA (lighter than air) mission concepts, and a couple of offhand mentions of HTA concepts. These are all separate from the ARES concept that is already linked nearby. Here's some examples: [a long time ago, but serious] http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17308/1/99-0751.pdf http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17308/1/99... [Venus, or maybe Titan] http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/up-up-and-away-with-aerobots/ http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/up-up-and-away-with-a... [Mars, with Earth demo] http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2005/session_10b/3_behar_10b.pdf http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2005/session_1... I learned that the Soviet Union used two small balloons to explore Venus in 1985. edited to add: I noticed a comprehensive design study for ARES which covers a lot of reasoning for tradeoffs: http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-aiaa-2003-6578.pdf http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-aiaa-2003-6578.pdf
BrandonMarc 12y ago
Randall Munroe has a nice writeup about flying on Mars, here. Short answer: the air is so thin, a drone would have to fly at Mach 1 just to remain airborne. Also, because the air is so thin, at that speed the plane would be darn near impossible to turn: the plane itself would rotate but not change course. http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/ Now zeppelins, on the other hand ...
- omilu 12y ago
  "Now zeppelins, on the other hand ..." wouldn't zeppelins be disadvantage by the thin air as well?
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Awesome. I love Randall's stuff.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

nsxwolf 12y ago

Why won't they send something that can directly detect the existence of microbes? It seems they're always after indirect signs. The focus this time seems purely geological in nature.

omilu 12y ago

I'm assuming space x would provide the launch services? Does Nasa even do rockets to outer space anymore?

rzimmerman 12y ago
NASA doesn't do manned launches at the moment. There are several other providers for unmanned launches (including for Mars payloads). SpaceX has never done anything beyond Earth orbit, so they'd be an unlikely choice for this.