EEVblog #328 - Curiosity Mars Rover Landing

#25 Reply
Posted by Mr Smiley on 05 Aug, 2012 19:55
Quote from: free_electron on 03 Aug, 2012 19:49
Quote from: Mr Smiley on 02 Aug, 2012 15:32

why is it that invariably some moron feels the need to bring something like this up ?

In Response to Free_electron,,,

It was meant as slight humor.

But from your response I'd rather be known as a moron than a clearly unpleasant person like yourself.

So what you were also saying is; your memory parity chip corrected the errors and reported what was happening to the system. Then along came the Monkey and you changed the module.

ps - Morons can do basic arithmetic; otherwise i couldn't have posted this response which puts us on a level field Monkey

#26 Reply
Posted by G7PSK on 05 Aug, 2012 20:21
I read somewhere of a proposal for a solar system wide radio observatory to look into deep space. That would be some undertaking indeed but very interesting results would follow.Could even bee used to look for longer wavelengths than are possible at present.

#27 Reply
Posted by MikeK on 05 Aug, 2012 22:05
We should start with an observatory on the moon. It's so close. Hubble has done a tremendous job by being above Earth's atmosphere. Imagine being able to carve an observatory out of the lunar surface.

#28 Reply
Posted by pickle9000 on 05 Aug, 2012 22:31
Are they planning on crashing the decent vehicle after landing the rover? I'd like to see them land it and then take it for a burn until the fuel runs out (5 seconds of fuel).

Remember when they landed that satellite on the asteroid or comet (I forget which)? That was awesome.

...mike

#29 Reply
Posted by MikeK on 06 Aug, 2012 02:17
Just saw this: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Australia_is_all_ears_for_Mars_landing_999.html

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex is the main tracking station for the landing.

#30 Reply
Posted by DrGeoff on 06 Aug, 2012 03:55
I think this one is running RTEMS, at least in parts, which is a realtime executive that was developed for military systems initially and is now public domain. Very robust and ported to quite a few systems now.
RTEMS.org for more details.

http://www.rtems.org/pipermail/rtems-users/2012-August/010316.html

#31 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:05
26 minutes to landing. Here is the countdown clock:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

The live stream is here:

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

#32 Reply
Posted by nitro2k01 on 06 Aug, 2012 05:19
Or if you want to listen to mission control with ambient music:
http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/

#33 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:30
Down to 90m/sec

#34 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:31
in powered flight now. 500m altitude

#35 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:32
skycrane has started

#36 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:32
touchdown confirmed

#37 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:35
Communication from Curiosity to Oddessy is strong. First thumbnail images just coming through now.

#38 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:38
First 256x256 pixel image has just come through showing the rover wheel on Mars. The camera still has its dustcovers on the lense. Oddessy is just about to go out of range.

#39 Reply
Posted by MikeK on 06 Aug, 2012 05:39
Engineering kicks ass again!

#40 Reply
Posted by amspire on 06 Aug, 2012 05:48
Here are the two 256x256 pixel photos. You can see the dust on the lens dust cover:

140Kg from 400kG of fuel left after touchdown.

#41 Reply
Posted by MikeK on 06 Aug, 2012 05:52
Lots of raw images here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

#42 Reply
Posted by Things on 06 Aug, 2012 06:51
Bloody incredible it worked so well, hugely impressed!

#43 Reply
Posted by KedasProbe on 06 Aug, 2012 07:33
Nice that it worked , I would like to see the sensor data about what really happened.
I wish they stopped calling that picture "High Res"

#44 Reply
Posted by radioman.lt on 06 Aug, 2012 07:52
i wonder is it real or they faked it ;/ ..you never know

#45 Reply
Posted by EEVblog on 06 Aug, 2012 07:57
Freak'n awesome!

But I'm pissed!
I was one of few people who didn't see it "live", and actually got a spoiler that it had landed, ruining the entire thing.
I went to the Sydney Observatory to see it as they advertised a live feed and figured it would be cool to hand out with the pro crowd watching this.
But it was a debacle.
Was supposed to happen at 3:30pm Syd time of course, and they announced they would start the live feed at 3pm. Ok, fair enough. Then we just watched videos until about 3:25pm when they decided to turn the live feed on. Great, at least I'll get to watch it...
No Wifi, so I wasn't able to see anything much on my phone apart from Twitter.
Then things just seemed a bit strange, I heard one announcer on the feed say 22min until entry and figured the timeline got screwed by some issue or something.
Then decided to check twitter to see what's happening and I see the NASA tweet that it had landed! and twitter melted down.
So I and a guy next to me who was doing the same thing looked at each other whispering WTF just happened?
And then we realised the "live" feed we were watching was massively delayed, by at least 20min it turns out, so we had to sit there deflated and watch he "live" feed knowing the ending. I have no idea how it was delayed or where they were getting their feed from.
Experience totally ruined.
Then we got a tap on the shoulder to keep our mouth shut, and they admitted they knew it was already down.

I should have stay home.
Thumbs down to the Sydney Observatory, what a bunch of dickheads.

Dave.

#46 Reply
Posted by radioman.lt on 06 Aug, 2012 08:10
yeah, a bit of shame ;/

#47 Reply
Posted by djsb on 06 Aug, 2012 08:17
Just went on YouTube NASATelevision and some news company has blocked a video that NASA uploaded for copyright reasons.
Mean spirited b******s. I'll just have to watch the BBC later.

David.

#48 Reply
Posted by radioman.lt on 06 Aug, 2012 08:29
Quote from: djsb on 06 Aug, 2012 08:17
Just went on YouTube NASATelevision and some news company has blocked a video that NASA uploaded for copyright reasons.
Mean spirited b******s. I'll just have to watch the BBC later.

ridiculous

#49 Reply
Posted by Things on 06 Aug, 2012 08:48
That sucks bigtime Dave.

I got my scare too as my internet started dropping out 20 mins before the landing, bloody Telstra at it again!

But hey, at least it's worked successfully, it's a pretty awesome event to witness.