The Curiosity On Mars Thread.

shedweller

Evil_g wrote: »

Off topic. Banned.

Nooooooooo!!

Capt'n Midnight

shedweller wrote: »

Happy new year to all!

:rolleyes:

Everyone knows that Mars doesn't reach aphelion until 00:24 tonight.


http://in-the-sky.org/news.php?id=20140103_14_100

Fri, 03 Jan 2014 at 00:24 GMT (4 hours away)
...
Mars's 687-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 1.67 AU. Unlike most of the planets, which follow almost exactly circular orbits around the Sun which only vary in their distance from the Sun by a few percent, Mars has a significantly elliptical orbit. Its distance from the Sun varies between 1.38 AU and 1.67 AU – a variation of over 20% – meaning that it receives 30% less energy from the Sun at aphelion as compared to perihelion.

:pac:

Mountainsandh

Blog post John Grotzinger.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlogs&BlogsID=283

Happy New Year !

shedweller

HiRISE took this pic recently. It shows Curiositys tracks over the past while.


And a closer view of the rover itself:

shedweller

MAHLI took this of a wheel. Looks fairly ropey and thats before the real climb even starts!:eek:

shedweller

I put this together from a few raw images taken at 06:29 this morning actually! Those two circular depressions look soft eh?

thecommander

shedweller wrote: »

I put this together from a few raw images taken at 06:29 this morning actually! Those two circular depressions look soft eh?

Do you have link to the original images?

2 stroke

I found this article interesting. http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/dust.html?c=y&page=4

the dust played a dirty trick: The gritty particles deteriorated the knife-edge indium seals of the bottles that were intended to isolate the rocks in a lunar-like vacuum. Air has slowly leaked in over the past 35 years. “Every sample brought back from the moon has been contaminated by Earth’s air and humidity,” Olhoeft says. The dust has acquired a patina of rust, and, as a result of bonding with terrestrial water and oxygen molecules, its chemical reactivity is long gone. The chemical and electrostatic properties of the soil no longer match what future astronauts will encounter on the moon.

Creates a great argument for a sending mobile laboratory to analize rocks and dust at source.

shedweller

thecommander wrote: »

Do you have link to the original images?

http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

shedweller

Some 6x6 terrain there eh?

Thats the crater wall in the distance.



New view of Mt Sharp. That terrain got a whole lot rougher than i thought it would.

shanered

On a side note, some guy is suing NASA for ignoring a rock which appeared and disappeared saying it may be a fungus type organisim.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/man-sues-nasa-failing-investigate-%E2%80%9Calien-life%E2%80%9D-mars

mickmackey1

Yeh, that was yesterday's apod

shedweller

http://www.space.com/24491-mars-rover-curiosity-wheel-damage.html

NASA engineers are looking for ways to reduce the wear and tear on the Mars rover Curiosity's wheels, which have accumulated an increasing number of dings and punctures over the last few months.

Curiosity's handlers are driving the 1-ton rover more cautiously now and are checking the condition of its wheels frequently, NASA officials said. The rover team is also considering sending Curiosity over a 3-foot-tall (1 meter) sand dune soon to access a potentially smoother, less rocky route to its ultimate science destination, the foothills of the towering Mount Sharp.

Surely after all the testing they did, they had some idea of the strength of the wheels?? Yes it weighs less but its mass is the same. I'm beginning to think they made a boo boo there on the mass/ weight thing.
Remember Hubble and the mirror mishap?

shedweller

Testing wheelslip no doubt.


They're looking at driving over this in the next while so as to take a smoother route.

thecommander

shedweller wrote: »

I put this together from a few raw images taken at 06:29 this morning actually! Those two circular depressions look soft eh?

Asked about that area.

No clue, but we do see fairly varying terrain so it wouldn't surprise me if this was just some local depressions that have some accumulation of fine particles.

shedweller

Nice one Commander!

Hey i was thinking about the mystery stone that made an appearance recently.
Well, HIRISE took a photo of a newish crater recently and it looks spectacular. I was thinking that the mystery stone could be from a similar impact, just not as big or what have you.
Its just that the stone looked very "new".
I must try find new HIRISE photos from the vicinity of MSL and see if i can find anything.

Capt'n Midnight

BTW

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26067927

A Nasa spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet has spied a fresh impact crater on the Martian surface.

The hole is about 30m (100ft) in diameter and surrounded by a blast zone of debris punched out of the ground by the meteorite impact.

The explosion that generated this crater tossed out debris as far as 15km (9.3 mi).
...
These studies indicate that impacts producing holes at least 3.9m (12.8ft) in diameter occur at a rate exceeding 200 per year across the planet.

shedweller

Been busy this past while so i missed "The Crossing Of Dingo Gap"!
Did anyone see the gif of the crossing?

I didn't know Curiosity was heading away from Mt.Sharp to do this. I expect the softer route more than makes up for the extra drive.
There didn't appear to be too much slippage either which is a relief.

shedweller

.....beep beep beep....warning, the rover is now reversing!:pac:
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/traverse-map-20140219/

On Tuesday, Feb. 18, the rover covered 329 feet (100.3 meters), the mission's first long trek that used reverse driving and its farthest one-day advance of any kind in more than three months.
The reverse drive validated feasibility of a technique developed with testing on Earth to lessen damage to Curiosity's wheels when driving over terrain studded with sharp rocks. However, Tuesday's drive took the rover over more benign ground.
"We wanted to have backwards driving in our validated toolkit because there will be parts of our route that will be more challenging," said Curiosity Project Manager Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Front Hazcam view (doesn't have to mean the rover is now heading towards Mt sharp though!)


NASA put up this gorgeous picture of Dingo Pass:


Just WOW! See the thin line in the left to mid foreground? See where the wheel has cracked it off as it passed? It's white mineral-ly stuff!!

K.Flyer

A million thanks Shedweller for the pictures of the Mars landscape, truly amazing stuff.
Just one question.. any idea how many Km has Curiosity covered so far on its epic ramble.
Thanks again.

thecommander

K.Flyer wrote: »

A million thanks Shedweller for the pictures of the Mars landscape, truly amazing stuff.
Just one question.. any idea how many Km has Curiosity covered so far on its epic ramble.
Thanks again.

5km I think I read.

shedweller

thecommander wrote: »

5km I think I read.

Thats it. They had a 5k run the other day to mark the event.
I did some reading on the wheels and although im disappointed in their performance it has to be said that it was a very fine line re: their weight/strength.
They were the landing gear so they needed to absorb the landing. If they were too heavy there would also have to have been a shock absorber fitted to the leg extender mechanism and a failure of this would leave MSL looking more like a low rider and equally useless!

I just dont know how they plan on getting up mt sharp if the wheels continue to degrade as they are. In fairness if they take a sandy route as much as pissible then they can give her welly up the mountain to the finish line. Its just a pity that science is losing out to flimsy wheels.

2 stroke

When i first saw those holes in the wheels, I thought corrosion, but why? I didn't see anything in the analysis that looked corrosive.
Just figured it out. I bet the rover they kept here on earth doesn't suffer this problem.
We think of aluminium as non reactive, but it actually reacts strongly with oxygen. On earth aluminium is protected from corrosion by an oxide layer, scratch it and a new oxide layer forms quickly. On mars, well oxygen is rather scarce. Also I think lower temperatures inhibit the reaction with oxygen, higher temps certainly accelerate it, aluminium burns with a brilliant white flame.
Every scratch on those wheels will become a hole. Are the titanium ribs attached directly to the spokes? If so it may trundle on for some time if it doesn't sink.
Does anyone from nasa read these threads?

Muppet Man

shedweller wrote: »

Its just a pity that science is losing out to flimsy wheels.

Thats the nature of exploration though, isnt it? Each mission improves based on the lessons learned from the previous mission. So it is a longer term win for Mars exploration.

shedweller

Muppet Man wrote: »

Thats the nature of exploration though, isnt it? Each mission improves based on the lessons learned from the previous mission. So it is a longer term win for Mars exploration.

Yes. They said the heavier rover brought new challenges with respect to the wheels.
But the last two rovers wheels had no problems except the motor that went kaput. Wheels themselves were fine.

2 stroke

Yes, weight is possibly a factor. Aluminium oxide layer is quite strong, and the lighter rovers wheels may not be scratching so deeply as to expose the non oxidised layer.

thecommander

2 stroke wrote: »

When i first saw those holes in the wheels, I thought corrosion, but why? I didn't see anything in the analysis that looked corrosive.
Just figured it out. I bet the rover they kept here on earth doesn't suffer this problem.
We think of aluminium as non reactive, but it actually reacts strongly with oxygen. On earth aluminium is protected from corrosion by an oxide layer, scratch it and a new oxide layer forms quickly. On mars, well oxygen is rather scarce. Also I think lower temperatures inhibit the reaction with oxygen, higher temps certainly accelerate it, aluminium burns with a brilliant white flame.
Every scratch on those wheels will become a hole. Are the titanium ribs attached directly to the spokes? If so it may trundle on for some time if it doesn't sink.
Does anyone from nasa read these threads?

The oxide layer is microscopically thin, so I wouldn't be putting the damage down to a lack of that layer.

The damage is due to the weight of the rover and the thickness of the wheels at their thinest point (less than 1mm, can't find the reference for that. They will outlast the specified mission length, and it was always known they'd be damaged. They've reassessed the driving route to minimise damage, so it's not like it going to stop driving any time soon.

Pic of the wheel on the Earth twin, iPhone pic so a bit ****e
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5byk9lg3wh279in/Screenshot%202014-02-21%2017.36.46.png

shedweller

I read somewhere that they are 0.73mm thick between the treads. Where the spokes connect to the tires is thicker and is basically a thick rib going around the tire where the spokes bolt in. So they should remain somewhat circular!

shedweller

Nice panoramas!

Rubecula

I know I am a bit mad really, but honestly a lot of these pictures remind me of the Atacama desert

Amazing similarities.