New Mars Forums

Some more great Mars Express images have been posted in the last week:

Hecates Tholus volcano:
[http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar … _hires.jpg]Color / 3D Anaglyph next to each other
[http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar … 95-300.jpg]Color (huge)
[http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar … 54-72D.jpg]3D Anaglyph (large)

The next rover in 2009 will be nuclear powered through an RTG. It is being designed to be able to rove around on Mars for a year or more.

As for current and othr future missions using nuclear technology:
Cassini uses RTG's as well - as did Galileo.

JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter - formerly project Prometheus) is a pretty exciting mission as well, planned for launch in 2012. It will be the first interplanetary mission to use a nuclear reactor (not RTG), which will be used to power an ion drive. [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/]NASA JIMO homepage
[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/art/jimo_o … browse.jpg]JIMO schematic

The partial "wheel" is the indention of the Mossbauer spectrometer instrument.

The filters are not the same on the left and right Pancam's. The left filters are are mostly around the visible spectrum, while the right ones are mostly far infrared.

Here are the filter details:
LEFT CAMERA                     RIGHT CAMERA
         1 = EMPTY (clear)                       1 = 436nm (37nm Short-pass)
         2 = 753nm (20nm bandpass)       2 = 754nm (20nm bandpass)
         3 = 673nm (16nm bandpass)       3 = 803nm (20nm bandpass)
         4 = 601nm (17nm bandpass)       4 = 864nm (17nm bandpass)
         5 = 535nm (20nm bandpass)       5 = 904nm (26nm bandpass)
         6 = 482nm (25nm bandpass)       6 = 934nm (25nm bandpass)
         7 = 432nm (32nm Short-pass)     7 = 1009nm (38nm Long-pass)
         8 = 440nm (20) Solar ND 5.0       8 = 880nm (20) Solar ND 5.0

As you can see, there's only two stereoscopic matches:
1. L2/R2 - Infrared stereoscopic
2. L7/R1 - Ultraviolet stereoscopic
(There's also L0/R0 for Navcam and the Hazcams - no filtering)

So it makes sense that an L4 image would look quite different than a R4 one.

Lockheed Martin CEV update:

LM has posted some new images to their [http://www.ast.lmco.com/cev/gallery.html]CEV gallery, and it looks like they have abandoned their lifting body/spaceplane for a capsule design: (newer images on top, older design in bottom)

- [http://www.ast.lmco.com/cev/images/news … EV_low.jpg]CEV size comparison with Shuttle
- [http://www.ast.lmco.com/cev/images/news … ng_low.jpg]CEV docking with ISS
- [http://www.ast.lmco.com/cev/images/news … rofile.jpg]CEV mission profile

I suppose they got some sense knocked into them - If the CEV is intended to go beyond LEO, a lifting body or spaceplane makes no sense.

Here's some more images:
[http://www.1tv.ru/img/20040224160742.GIF]http://www.1tv.ru/img/20040224160742.GIF
[http://www.kp.ru/upimg/logo_17242.jpg]http://www.kp.ru/upimg/logo_17242.jpg

These two images seem to imply that it would be launched facing forward, instead of backwards, as suggested by [http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kliper.htm]Astronautix.com.

Here some info from a [http://www.kp.ru/daily/23222/26854/]Russian paper:
- 3m diameter
- 7m length
- 20 m^3 space
- 9800 kg launch mass
- emergency escape tower would be attached to nose during launch

EDIT: more images seen at space.com forum:
[http://airbase.ru/forums-uploads/post-5-1077729796.gif]A graph illustrating cross-range ability
[http://airbase.ru/forums-uploads/post-5-1077729635.jpg]Simple 3d model of shape

EDIT again:
I knew the shape looked somewhat familiar - does the "Kipler" shape not look quite a bit like the McD X-33 concept? [http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x33p4.jpg]http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x33p4.jpg - take away the fins, and they are almost the same, at least from that angle, not so much [http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x33mcd.jpg]here.

What did you expect???

Erosion doesn't just work along winds or water currents. Softer parts of the rocks will be eroded off first, leaving stronger layers as "ridges" sticking out.

As the impact shattered the rock, several pieces were tumbled around a bit, leaving some rocks facing different directions. As the wind started eroding the rocks, the soft rock areas eroded faster. I see no problem weith these "erosion" lines being turned 90 degrees from lines on other rocks.

First of all, the the microscopic imager is a fixed-focus camera - for simplicity I'm sure. How would you like a multi-million $$$ mission become crippled because the fancy auto-focus system of an important camera fails under the extreme conditions? Fortunately, the KISS rule seems to have been used by JPL. (Did you know that all the cameras on the rovers use the same CCD design?)

Second, it takes a series of images with the camera moving slightly closer each time on purpose - JPL uses this data to create 3D views/models of the imaged area (see [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … B019R1.jpg]example and [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … -A13R1.jpg]example) - this also of course increases the odds of finding the right focus for the next attempt (if any).

Third, yes - this will inevitably lead to "missed" images, since both A) the calculated distance to the object might be off a bit, and B) the robot arm (while extremely accurate) might be off slightly. But so what is the big deaL? Just take another series of images.

I wouldn't stretch that analogy so far. Our current science is based upon hundreds of years of observations, iteratively improving our models and understand of the laws of nature. (From Newton's simple physics, to Einstein's relativity, to Quantum physics, to ... well whatever comes next) To compare that with the dogmatic beliefs in the middle ages is just absurd, IMO. They did not even wont to look into early telescopes, to get visible proof that the moon was not a perfect sphere. In addition, the flat world idea was just based upon an assumption, not actual observations.

The scientific community does have a lot of inertia and can be conservative, but don't confuse that with being dogmatic. The moment anyone can come of with a reproducable exeriment that demonstrates ability to modify the effects of gravity (or "cold fusion"), I can guarantee you that pretty much every physicist out there is going to be itching to work on it.

To know you are right is not the same position as wanting proof. Any scientist worth their salt knows that our knowledge is not complete by any means.

I hope you see the irony of these two statements of yours...

Well, until we can develop a proper unified field theory and fully understand the nature of gravity, we do not know the answer to that question. Modifying gravitational influence may be:
A) Impossible
B) Possible but impractical
C) Practical

We simply do not know yet...

dickbill, read SohoBoy's last post. Nasa TV says so.
(As for why I thought so? Because I dabble a bit in 3D stuff in my spare time, and it looked like a 3D model - the edges are a big giveaway)

I don't know the details of how JPL converts a series of images to a 3D model, but JPL guys are pretty tricksy! ;-)