General > General Technical Chat
One Day Until "Seven Minutes of Terror"
<< < (9/9)
Gyro:

--- Quote from: MikeK on February 18, 2021, 09:55:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on February 18, 2021, 09:50:10 pm ---JPL has kitted out the system with multiple cameras and microphones to record the landing. They seem very interested in footage and recordings. I gather anything to which helps you better understand what happened will improve the chances of future missions. We don't have a great understanding of atmospheric landings outside of our own atmosphere.

--- End quote ---

The instrumentation tells they way more than video.  And microphones are pretty pointless on a planet with almost no atmosphere (about 1% Earth's).  I'd bet on it being more of a PR thing, to get public interest.

--- End quote ---

Another scientifically relevant use of the microphone - listening to the sound of laser ablation of rocks to establish their hardness at a distance. Much more efficient than having to trundle up to each one...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56354383
Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: Homer J Simpson on February 24, 2021, 07:17:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on February 24, 2021, 07:08:01 pm ---Do the red and white color patterns on the parachute have any function?

--- End quote ---


Function is to help study the video of the deployment process.


The message.......


It's a binary code explained in the video in the earlier post.

"DARE MIGHTY THINGS"

 Lattitude and longitude coordinates for JPL.






--- End quote ---

   Looking at the parachute color encoding, it's quite impressive how much thought has gone into even the most minor details of this mission. But that's the level of detail that needs to happen if you're going to launch an almost fully autonomous vehicle that is going to have to make a journey of seven months and then be able to land by itself under almost completely unknown conditions. My hat is off to the people at JPL and NASA that can accomplish things like that.
Navigation
Message Index
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod