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#176 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Orion (CEV / SM) - status » 2008-05-16 06:22:23
Program briefing - 15 May 2008 - audio 61 mins
Briefing participants:
- Jeff Hanley, manager, Constellation Program, NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston
- Mark Geyer, manager, Orion Project, NASA's Johnson Space Center
- Steve Cook, manager, Ares Projects, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
o Reaching end of the formulation phase
o Lunar capability concept to be reviewed June 2008
o Finishing formulation for Orion and Ares I by summer 2008 and program approval review by end of 2008
o Improved confidence in March 2015 date of Initial Operational Capability for Orion/Ares I
o Excellent prime contractor (ATK, P&W, Lockheed Martin) performance
o KSC preparing for Ares I-X, hardware CDR June 2008
o Internal first flight date is Sep 2013 - unchanged - no impact due to slippage
o Biggest challenge is funding
o Orion PDR slip has no effect on other elements (Ares, ground operations, missions operations, spacesuit)
o Cx budget can manage 6 months of continuing resolution from Congress
Orion
o In preliminary design approaching PDR
o During 22 April checkpoint decided more time needed for integrated vehicle analysis (loads, power, structure)
o PDR now probably in November (slipped two months), another checkpoint in September
o Working to get as much capability, robustness and flexibility
o PDR must show lunar capable vehicle that closes on mass
o LIDS (low impact docking system) testing started on first engineering unit
o First friction stir welds on ground test article expected later this year at MAF
o LAS PAD Abort test now 11 December 2008 (slipped from 23 Sep due to late deliveries of LM electronics)
o No mass margin used to date
o Mass reductions in LAS motor because of reduced drag (reduces load and structure)
o Ascent abort 1 test planned for April 2010
o Landing mode - water nominal, contingency land (requires 200kg in design)
o Investigating cost of water landing (reuse) and changing back to nominal land mode
o Every extra kg in CM costs 9 kg elsewhere!
o TPS will either be PICA or Avcoat- both options are good, to be decided after PDR
#177 Re: Not So Free Chat » Did Iran become a player in space ? » 2008-05-16 03:26:19
A consequence of the Iraq war was that global terrorism increased six-fold!! Thats even if you exclude attacks occuring in Iraq.
So much for not fanning the flames.
Not really unless what Saddam Hussein was doing to his people for 30 years can be called good governance. Over 300,000 mass graves have been found in Iraq since the liberation, all filled with people he had tortured and killed. Let alone the 5000 he killed with chemical weapons and the unknown number he was responsible for killing during the Iran Iraq war, estimated at over one million. His was killing people by the thousands right up until the invasion stopped him. Random acts of terror are horrific but at least civilians have a chance, but having to the entire apparatus of the state used against them for thirty year is beyond horror. In comparison with the "six fold " increase in global terrorism since 2003 the extent of Saddam's terror was orders of magnitude worse.
This shifting of the blame won't work anymore; it's the terrorists, namely AQ, Baathists, Sunni and Shia extremists who are responsible for terrorism!
#178 Re: Human missions » Constellation (Cx) » 2008-05-16 00:14:20
Program briefing - 15 May 2008 - audio 61 mins
Briefing participants:
- Jeff Hanley, manager, Constellation Program, NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston
- Mark Geyer, manager, Orion Project, NASA's Johnson Space Center
- Steve Cook, manager, Ares Projects, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
o Reaching end of the formulation phase
o Starting formal requirements definition of Ares V and Altair soon
o Lunar capability concept to be reviewed June 2008
o Finishing formulation for Orion and Ares I by summer 2008 and program approval review by end of 2008
o Improved confidence in March 2015 date of Initial Operational Capability for Orion/Ares I
o Excellent prime contractor (ATK, P&W, Lockheed Martin) performance
o KSC preparing for Ares I-X, hardware CDR June 2008
o Ares I-X main risk to launch date is availability of mobile launch platform (max slip 6 weeks)
o Construction continues at pad 39B and VAB
o USA will process Ares I-X stack
o Internal first flight date is Sep 2013 - unchanged - no impact due to slippage
o Biggest challenge is funding
o Orion PDR slip has no effect on other elements (Ares, ground operations, missions operations, spacesuit)
o Ares I-X test will validate dynamics models, trajectory and flight controls; also prove lean methods for manufacturing and operations
o Cx budget can manage 6 months of continuing resolution from Congress
Orion
o In preliminary design approaching PDR
o During 22 April checkpoint decided more time needed for integrated vehicle analysis (loads, power, structure)
o PDR now probably in November (slipped two months), another checkpoint in September
o Working to get as much capability, robustness and flexibility
o PDR must show lunar capable vehicle that closes on mass
o LIDS (low impact docking system) testing started on first engineering unit
o First friction stir welds on ground test article expected later this year at MAF
o LAS PAD Abort test now 11 December 2008 (slipped from 23 Sep due to late deliveries of LM electronics)
o No mass margin used to date
o Mass reductions in LAS motor because of reduced drag (reduces load and structure)
o Ascent abort 1 test planned for April 2010
o Landing mode - water nominal, contingency land (requires 200kg in design)
o Investigating cost of water landing (reuse) and changing back to nominal land mode
o Every extra kg in CM costs 9 kg elsewhere!
o TPS will either be PICA or Avcoat- both options are good, to be decided after PDR
Ares I
o Ares I vehicle stack PDR starts 14 July to be complete 10 September 2008
o 70% wind tunnel testing complete (5000 hours)
o First stage now in PDR to be complete 5 June 2008
o First drogue parachute tests in July 2008
o First inert 5 segment cast complete for ground vibration tests
o Nozzle tests complete
o First static test of 5 segment motor April 2009
o J-2X starting CDR component reviews, full engine CDR in November
o Testing J-2X gas generator
o Started production of powerpack #2 (J-2X)
o Upper stage PDR starting in June 2008, all subsystems PDRs complete
o Acceptance testing large scale robotic weld tools
o Wide panel structural tests starting July 2008
o Thrust Oscillation issue in work - design and tests - to be ready for Ares I stack review
#179 Re: Unmanned probes » Phoenix - North Pole Region Lander (PHX) » 2008-05-15 22:31:45
Phoenix EDL Animation:
Great animation - it turns the seven minutes of terror into the seven minutes of technology! Beautiful. Must see and hear!!
The EDL teaser trailer is fun too 
The sequel video of the arm trenching will soon be starting production
Thx for the links.
9 days and counting
#180 Re: Space Policy » President of India calls for joint - US/Indian habitat on Mars by 2050 » 2008-05-15 22:20:52
If you could produce it cheaper than China, you would already be doing so. However its very clear that you can't.
I don't support how the chinese goverment run their state, but I think that going to change over the next couple of decades. If there is already economic co-operation with China, you aren't proving anything by freezing them out of space. It hypocrtical and just plain silly!!
China is going to get into space exploration and they probably will have the resources to do it on a massive scale. They are probably going to become the most powerful country in the world in a few decades. I'd prefer to do a deal with them in the meantime.
You can be very influential through co-operation and by not being hostile all the time.
Just as China's low labor rates made it competitive against Korea and Taiwan, India and other countries will be able to out compete China. The dream of highly automated factories is still a dream, yet one day it will be realized and the economics will change again.
There's nothing magical about China, just because they have a enormous population and are developing quickly doesn't mean they will become "the most powerful country in the world in a few decades". The same was said about Japan in the 1970s, it was going to overtake the US economy by the 21st Century and look where Japan is today. Most of China is grossly under developed, it has enormous environmental, infrastructure and educational problems. China is run by an autocratic communist government that tolerates no opposition and oppresses any signs of democracy. That type of government becomes fossilized and dysfunctional.
China's interest in space appears to be solely military and political, they have no civilian space program, it's all under military control. Their aim seems to be to prove to the world that they are as advanced as any other country, when clearly they are not. Their human space program is equivalent to the Russian and US programs of the mid 1960s.
Considering that China is rapidly becoming an adversary, it would be foolish indeed to provide them with more dual use technology. Once the government has radically changed to embrace democracy, China would be welcomed by the rest of the world that it hasn't already bribed or threatened.
#181 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Mass People Transport » 2008-05-15 21:56:00
Rather than wait around for an accident to happen, we should be phasing fission power out and getting ready for safer sources like fusion.
anyway, lets get back on topic - mass people transport!
Phasing out fission power before anyone even knows when fusion power will be available would be a disastrous policy.
Yes, mass people transport in space - before this can be sensibly discussed, where are these people going and why?
#182 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Local superonva remnant dated to about 1870 » 2008-05-15 14:38:41
They say it "went supernova about 140 years ago" so yes that's ERT (Earth receive Time)
As it's 25,000 LY away, the light would have been traveling for all that time before it could have been detected on Earth, but no one detected it until 1985 - about 120 years after the first photons arrived.
#183 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Russia+Europe sign deal to build six seater Lunar Craft! :D » 2008-05-15 14:30:32
It sure seems like the Klipper - 6 crew etc etc - the Russians have been trying to get ESA to pay for it for a long time.
#184 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Russia+Europe sign deal to build six seater Lunar Craft! :D » 2008-05-15 13:46:48
Gregori,
13 space agencies are already cooperating on the exploration of the Moon - hopefully this will be bigger and better than the ISS project!
ESA/RKA don't have the launcher or the lander to do the job. Traveling to the Moon is not that hard, a modified Soyuz could probably do it. The difficult part is landing on the Moon safely, the really hard part is taking off again.
#185 Re: Human missions » Armstrong Lunar Outpost - status » 2008-05-15 13:37:07
Straying OT again, this topic is really about the status of Lunar Outpost ...
Thanks for the Robonaut link. The 14 degree of freedom capability sounds interesting but whether its has the capability to work reliably and effectively on the lunar surface is far from clear. Robotic repairs of HST were considered recently but were dropped because the technology wasn't ready. Repairing mining and production machinery on the lunar surface will be far more complex unless there are replacement units for every likely failure. Designing machines to be repaired like this is not easy and very expensive. The repair system tends to be more complex and therefore less reliable than the system it repairs, so it will probably be broken when it's needed.
No automated repair has ever been done in space, the nearest was a battery changeout test on the recent ASTRO mission. So the question is how much will cost to develop and transport such a complex manufacturing capability system to the Moon compared with the cost of simply sending additional solar or nuclear power plants? The technology is not ready and may not be ready even by 2030.
Which mines are fully automated today?
#186 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Russia+Europe sign deal to build six seater Lunar Craft! :D » 2008-05-15 11:18:11
Sure, if it's true it's good news, but this is reported as "travel" to the Moon, it won't be a landing.
#187 Re: Human missions » Armstrong Lunar Outpost - status » 2008-05-15 10:37:12
That is not really the case Robotics has advanced to the point where they are very available for us to aid work on the Moon. Actually it is at the stage where using telerobotics and the very short communication lag that we can put a lot of the construction and base development onto robotic hands all controlled from Earth.
All manufacturing on the Moon will be highly automated and supplying the resources these factories and extraction systems need will be the job of telerobotic systems. When it comes down to the deployment of manufactured solar panels robots similar to the Robonaut using human space tools will do the job.
Not really. The most advanced space based manipulator system is the newly installed Dextre robot on the ISS. Dextre is designed to replace standard units on a well defined structure in free space. Dexter is yet to be tested. The surface of the Moon has none of those properties. The Moon is also covered with highly abrasive dust. Perhaps truly dexterous robots will be available in the 2020s but so far they have proven extremely difficult to design.
Yes, these lunar facilities will have to be automated, that will be hard enough to achieve. These systems have to work reliably in a low gravity, hard vacuum with big temperature changes, and handle tons of abrasive material. What's even more difficult to build are the robotic systems that will install, service and repair them. This is all many years ahead of current technology, it would be very risky to assume that this technology will be available in the 2020s.
#188 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Russia+Europe sign deal to build six seater Lunar Craft! :D » 2008-05-15 09:39:12
No ESA press release on this so far, maybe they ran out of ink?
#189 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Mass People Transport » 2008-05-15 08:27:54
If my figures are correct on this, It takes around 5-6 months to get to Mars with current chemical rocket technology. People have stayed on the ISS for that long, so it can be done without too much mental or physical damage.
ISS orbits within the Earth's magnetosphere and has significant protection from the solar wind and GCR. In an emergency, ISS crew can use their Soyuz lifeboat and be safely on Earth within about an hour. They are also in almost continuous real time communication with people on Earth, as well as seeing the planet in great detail just below them. Crew in transit to Mars and back will be in a far more stressing and dangerous environment.
#190 Re: Human missions » Armstrong Lunar Outpost - status » 2008-05-15 08:05:48
When we go back to the Moon we will want to be able to increase our power supply from the materials we find there.
Though ultra thin pv coatings have shown to be very efficient they are also weak and prone to damage from radiation. But much more importantly they require laboratory conditions and materials hard to find on the Moon.
One of the most common elements on the Moon is Silicon and we will be processing it just to get Oxygen. The pure Silicon we have just made can then be used to make the simple amorphous Silicon solar cells. These are very rugged and more or less immune to radiation damage. They can be placed on boards of lunar derived metal sheet.
So there efficiency may only be at working use about 5% but the benefit is that we have tested what it would be like to manufacture these cells and we can easily make it an automated process and so we can just keep increasing the power capacity of a base.
Another thing to increse there ruggedness is to not make them sun following. Just place them on A frames and occasionly go past and dust them.
Thanks. Yes, if this works it would be a very sensible way to proceed and effectively provide unlimited amounts of power when coupled with energy storage systems - for example fuel cells. However there are at least three preconditions:
1. There is sufficient power already in place to support this manufacturing and construction activity. This means an initial power plant has to be established using a system produced an Earth and transported to the Moon.
2. Regolith mining and handling technology is available.
3. Unless there are significant advances in robotics, there will need to be enough crew time available to establish and maintain the solar panel fabrication and deployment facility. This will be a trade off between highly expensive crew time, extremely expensive to develop and test manufacturing systems and the value and requirements for additional surface power within the context of the Outpost timeline.
#191 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Local superonva remnant dated to about 1870 » 2008-05-15 06:38:39
Remains of 140-Year-Old Supernova Discovered - 14 May 2008
Astronomers have discovered traces of a star that went supernova about 140 years ago, around the time of the U.S. Civil War and the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The expanding debris cloud, or remnant, known as G1.9+0.3, lies near the center of the Milky Way, about 25,000 light-years from Earth.
Besides making G1.9+0.3 the youngest supernova remnant known in our galaxy, the finding begins to fill a peculiar astronomical gap. Based on studies of other galaxies, researchers estimate that about three supernovae should pop off per century in the Milky Way. They knew of one recent remnant, Cassiopeia A, which went supernova around 1680.
Researchers first identified G1.9+0.3 as a supernova remnant in 1985, using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA), a sprawling network of radio telescopes in Soccoro, N.M. They estimated its age at 400 to 1,000 years old.
More than 20 years later, in 2007, a team observing the remnant via NASA's orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory found that it had grown by a surprising 16 percent, implying that the object was younger than they thought. When researchers checked double-checked using VLA, they got the same result, published in twin papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Despite the supernova's timing, contemporaries of Lincoln and Darwin would have missed it, because dust and gas surrounding the dying star would have blocked the flash of visible light. The expanding gas cloud shines brightly, however, in radio and x-ray frequencies.
G1.9+0.3 may be the tip of the iceberg. "If the supernova rate estimates are correct, there should be the remnants of about 10 supernova explosions in the Milky Way that are younger than Cassiopeia A," said David Green of the University of Cambridge in England, leader of the VLA study, in a statement. "It's great to finally track one of them down."
#192 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Super heavy elements found in nature » 2008-05-15 04:58:51
Some more Tom T.
You guys dont want to science, lets do music.
Vincent
Not here Vincent, you know that.
Now you've wasted my time cleaning up your mess.
Learn to use the message delete feature, and use it often.
#193 Re: Unmanned probes » Phoenix - North Pole Region Lander (PHX) » 2008-05-15 04:50:25
Landing Events Schedule - 14 May 2008
Times are Pacific Daylight and some are subject to change
Thursday, May 22
-- News briefing, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Saturday, May 24
-- News briefing, noon
-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6), 7:46 p.m.Sunday, May 25
<snip>
-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6X), 8:46 a.m.
-- News briefing, noon
-- Begin non-commentary live television feed from JPL control room, 3 p.m.
-- Begin commentated live television feed from JPL control room, 3:30 p.m.
-- Propulsion system pressurization, 4:16 p.m.
-- Begin "bent-pipe" relay relay (continuous transmission of Phoenix data as it is received) through NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft to Goldstone, Calif., Deep Space Network station, 4:38 p.m.
-- Green Bank, W. Va., radio telescope listening for direct UHF from Phoenix, 4:38 p.m.
-- Cruise stage separates, 4:39 p.m.
-- Spacecraft turns to attitude for atmospheric entry, 4:40 p.m.
-- Spacecraft enters atmosphere, 4:46:33 p.m.
-- Likely blackout period as hot plasma surrounds spacecraft, 4:47 through 4:49 p.m.
-- Parachute deploys, 4:50:15 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Heat shield jettisoned, 4:50:30 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Legs deploy, 4:50:40 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds. -
- Radar activated, 4:51:30 p.m.
-- Lander separates from backshell, 4:53:09 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Transmission gap during switch to helix antenna 4:53:08 to 4:53:14 p.m.
-- Descent thrusters throttle up, 4:53:12 p.m.
-- Constant-velocity phase starts, 4:53:34 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Touchdown, 4:53:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Lander radio off 4:54:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Begin opening solar arrays (during radio silence) 5:13 p.m.
-- Begin NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:28 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Begin Europe's Mars Express spacecraft playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:30 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Post-landing poll of subsystem teams about spacecraft status, 5:30 p.m.
-- Mars Odyssey "bent-pipe" relay of transmission from Phoenix, with engineering data and possibly including first images, 6:43 to 7:02 p.m. Data could take up to about 30 additional minutes in pipeline before being accessible. If all goes well, live television feed from control room may show first images as they are received. The first images to be taken after landing will be of solar arrays, to check deployment status.
-- News briefing, 9 p.m.
10 days and counting!
#194 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Ares I (CLV) - status » 2008-05-15 04:34:34
Visualization of Ares I-X on the partly converted pad 39B at KSC
Glenn hardware has key role in testing new rocket - 14 May 2008 - By Kevin Kelley
If all goes well, a piece of space hardware manufactured at the Glenn Research Center will launch just under a year from now.
That flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will be the first test flight of the rocket system that will replace the space shuttle and return astronauts to the surface of the moon.
What exactly is Glenn’s contribution to this important test flight?
The tuna can.
At least that’s what it’s affectionately called on the Glenn campus.
The hardware’s true name is the upper stage mass simulator for the Ares I-X test flight. It’s called the “tuna can” because the simulator consists of several “tuna can”-like cylinders stacked on top of one another to substitute for the actual upper stage rocket that will be used in future launches.
Ares I is the crew launch vehicle that will send astronauts into orbit. The April 2009 launch will test the stability and flight dynamics of the solid rocket booster at the base of the Ares I.
“The purpose for the flight is to test the first stage flight of this solid rocket booster, which is a shuttle solid rocket booster that we are modifying for use on the Ares-I rocket,” said Vince Bilardo, Glenn’s project manager for the Ares I-X flight.
The suborbital flight will last a little more than two minutes, Bilardo said, and reach an altitude of 150,000 feet.
Glenn was given the responsibility to design, fabricate and test the upper stage simulator and deliver it to the Kennedy Space Center.
“It’s a very key flight because it will be the very first test flight of this new vehicle launch system,” Bilardo said.
Bilardo said the test flight will verify whether the booster can get the vehicle up to the point where the booster has completed its job.
“The key objective of this first test flight is ‘Can we control this long skinny rocket?’” Bilardo explained. The stacked tuna cans will simulate the weight distribution and shape of the real upper stage, he said.
About 300 sensors will be on board the simulator to measure vibrations, temperatures, thrust, acceleration and pressures, Bilardo said. Cameras will also be on board, he added.
Just under 200 Glenn employees worked on the upper stage simulator. $40 million was spent at Glenn on the simulator; a total of $350 million is being spent by NASA on the Ares I-X launch.
Therese Griebel, chief of Glenn’s Manufacturing Technology Division, said putting the upper stage simulator together has been challenging for her team.
The outer shell of each segment consists of two 10- by-30-foot pieces of carbon steel welded together, Griebel said. The welds had to be tested using radiographs and ultrasound, she added.
“The flanges (of each segment) have to be perfectly flat on top of each other,” Griebel said. Using lasers, workers achieved a degree of flatness of plus or minus one-ten-thousandths of an inch along the entire diameter of the can, she added.
Each segment is 18 feet wide. When fully assembled, the upper stage simulator will consist of 11 segments measuring 120 feet in height.
The simulator will not be recovered from the ocean following the Ares I test flight. A future test flight, called Ares I-Y and scheduled for 2012, will fly with a functional upper stage.
#195 Re: Space Policy » President of India calls for joint - US/Indian habitat on Mars by 2050 » 2008-05-15 04:20:09
If trade between China and the US ceased overnight, there would a serious economic crisis in both countries, but it would impact China far more than the US. The US takes 20% of Chinese exports, whereas the US represents only 7% of Chinese imports. For the US, Chinese imports are 16% and exports just 6%. China also holds lots of US bonds, these would fall in value at the same time as China lost a big chunk of its export market.
There would be almost no effect on space cooperation between China and the US as there isn't any.
#196 Re: Unmanned probes » Mars Gullyver » 2008-05-15 04:04:24
Thanks for the link Csaba and welcome to newmars!
Would you like to say something about your project, give a brief overview for example, otherwise many readers will not bother to download the 5 MB PDF file.
#197 Re: Human missions » Problems with Humans on Mars » 2008-05-15 03:56:45
Sensing and analysis is a routine, highly automated task. People add nothing of value to this task, in fact human interference would reduce its efficiency and probably its quality.
Robotic space missions are far from cheap, however standardization and reuse are reducing the cost. Mass production of components, such as nano sensors and actuators will reduce costs enormously.
Let's sort out this confusion about cost per kg. When doing any comparison it's important to compare apples with apples. ISS in LEO is not equivalent to an MER rover on Mars. The equivalent would be MER in LEO, which weighed about 10,000 kg (third stage motor, cruise stage, EDL system etc etc) not simply the 175 Kg of the rover. Recalculating on a comparative basis yields about $40,000 per kg for MER, several times cheaper than the $212,000 for the ISS.
#198 Re: Human missions » Armstrong Lunar Outpost - status » 2008-05-15 03:11:19
The reason is that Spirit and Opportunity don’t have enough electricity to operate any longer. The rest of the day is spent charging the batteries so the rovers don’t freeze overnight. You’re confusing operating time with charging time.
We’re back to 9% efficiency, which is better than the 4% of ISS.
This is getting way OT, however maybe this helps.
The rover was powered by a combination of solar arrays and rechargeable batteries. The solar panel provides 30 strings of triple junction cells (gallium indium phosphorus, gallium arsenide, and germanium) covering 1.3 square meters, which produced about 800 to 900 W hours per sol at the beginning of the MER mission. Each rover had two reference solar cells, one that measures short circuit current and another that measures open circuit voltage. Due to the change in season from late southern summer to early southern autumn, and the degradation in performance due to dust deposition, the energy produced by this array dropped to about 600 W h per sol, 90 sols after landing. Energy was stored in two 8 A h lithium ion rechargeable batteries to provide over 400 W h of energy to support rover peak power operations and provide auxiliary heating and operations overnight.
Currently MER Spirt is producing 237 watt-hours per sol, just enough to do 90 mins of science per sol. Spirit is not moving at all, it's been sitting tilted towards the Sun for weeks because of its low power levels. Opportunity is much further south and has more power, it has other problems but has enough power to move.
Now back to discussion of the Lunar Outpost please ...
#200 Re: Unmanned probes » Phoenix - North Pole Region Lander (PHX) » 2008-05-14 16:23:38
Science News Briefing - video - 64 mins
Detailed briefings from Peter Smith (Principle Investigator), Ray Arvidson (Landing Site chairman) and Barry Goldstein (Project Manager) - good stuff!