Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

Palomar · 2004-02-12 13:11:44

[=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mars_science_lab_040211.html]Read Me

*I don't recall seeing this item posted here before. My apologies if I've overlooked something.

To be sent to Mars in 2009. Will employ a Skycrane instead of air bags. They're comparing the planned rover to an ET SUV (hey...that rhymes). Will be 4-5 times larger than our current rovers. Nix lengthy prep time for getting the rover onto the soil with this plan...with the Skycrane plan, rover can begin exploration almost immediately...

Interesting.

--Cindy

ramac · 2004-02-12 19:29:56

i doubt the skycrane, one slip and uv lost billions. i hav a concept, like the viking/polar lander but with suspension springs as exterior on the legs

Rxke · 2004-02-12 23:34:14

My first thought was: 'whoa! a Billion?' the newspapers will have a field day!"

Sadly, the price is always mentioned in the first two sentences of a new article about a new 'space-toy'

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-21 06:04:21

[http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 40211.html]Read Me
*I don't recall seeing this item posted here before. My apologies if I've overlooked something.
To be sent to Mars in 2009. Will employ a Skycrane instead of air bags

I'd hope they could come up with an option other than crashing the delivery crane after its dropped its cargo. Seems like a long way to take all that weight only to destroy it, surely they could incorporate something else into the unit to make it more worthwhile. The technology probably isn't up to it yet, but it would be good for say the crane to be useable as a low level flier after dropping its cargo - a nice slow flight over some of the more difficult to reach areas with a couple of cameras onboard.

atomoid · 2004-02-21 16:16:19

it seems a waste, it will proabably be programmed to fire the remainiing fuel to take it in a direction as far away from the lander as possible in fear of it crashing down onto the lander after it drops it.

But i'd hope especially since its in such a good close proximity to the lander that they might program it to soft land (not expect it to make it, ubt just give it a try like the vikings) and have its own telcom relay and simple pancam and telephoto lens on a mast so that if something went wrong during the lander drop off phase (probably the riskiest part), then we'd have at least an outside chance of being close enough to get a telephoto look at it and so would immensely help Nasa in troubleshooting the loss of a billion dollar probe.

i'd always thought they would put a simple lightweight camera and telcom relay on the MER lander shells just in case, so theyd have something else to try.

Mad Grad Student · 2004-02-21 18:04:02

The skycrane concept seemed very outlandish and risky when I first read about it, but then again, that's what everyone thought about airbags when they first came out. Actually, I thought that about airbags to a much greater extent, you make a multi-million dollar probe, send it over 200 million miles to another planet, slow it to a screeching halt fifty feet above the surface and then bounce it along the ground a couple of times before using it? Clearly ludicrious, but it works apparently better than using retrorockets, seeing as only one airbag-based probe has been lost, and only two retrorocket probe have worked.

Problem is, airbags only work for very small probes, if you're going send a bigger payload you have to get better brakes. My original (Though someone else must have come up with this seperately) idea would be to carry a canister of liquid hydrogen with you and then, after slowing to a reasonable speed with airbags, inflate a ballon to reduce your speed further. A resonable amount of hydrogen could turn a 1,000 pound rover into a 1,000 pound rover with 900 pounds of positive bouancy. From there, just make sure the thing can withstand the impact at the end.

Cost aside, Mars Science Laboratory had better get launched. According to the article it should function for at least a Martian year, be able to enter the Valles Marineris, and take core samples of the ground! MSL could easily increase our knowledge of the Red Planet tenfold, perhaps doing as much as a team of scientists could do in a whole week. I don't care what your political views or interests are, there is no way you can pass up an opportunity like that.

atomoid · 2004-02-22 02:16:46

I still think they oughta build TWO of 'em, -just in case...

Or they can always build an MER-style rover as a back-up, it should be relatively cheap to fit it in the budget, since all the hard work on the athena platform is all done and proven now it would just be a matter of sending a new copy, or better yet, budget in a little bit of work to fit a one with a few new instruments, maybe a drill like on beagle2 would have used, soil chemistry experiments...

we should keep sending one of these as a backup every launch window, it could be a safe-bet platform, or better yet take a chance on bouncing it down in a really [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Anaglyphs/3D151/3D151.htm]mind blowing place like [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Anaglyphs/3D66/3D66.htm]the Schiaparelli layers...

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-22 02:42:41

My original (Though someone else must have come up with this seperately) idea would be to carry a canister of liquid hydrogen with you and then, after slowing to a reasonable speed with airbags, inflate a ballon to reduce your speed further. A resonable amount of hydrogen could turn a 1,000 pound rover into a 1,000 pound rover with 900 pounds of positive bouancy. From there, just make sure the thing can withstand the impact at the end.

I was thinking last night along similar lines however I was trying to work out how helium would react. If the weight could be calculated correctly it could be used for things other than slowing the descent of the rover. Drop the whole bundle with the usual parachute to slow descent, then fill a balloon from canister of liquid helium (or whatever works best), if the weight is calculated correctly it would slowly lower the lander, once its safely down, release the lander and the balloon can rise with camera, sensors and transmitter sending back nice atmospheric data and some reasonable images.
Surely adding something like this to a billion dollar project would cost peanuts.

atomoid · 2004-02-22 03:01:40

Drop the whole bundle with the usual parachute to slow descent, then fill a balloon from canister of liquid helium (or whatever works best), if the weight is calculated correctly it would slowly lower the lander, once its safely down, release the lander and the balloon can rise with camera, sensors and transmitter sending back nice atmospheric data and some reasonable images.
Surely adding something like this to a billion dollar project would cost peanuts.

it coudl be prety cheap for something really basic youd think, theres some proposal for a big expensive [http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/balloons.html]Mars Balloon, one idea is to have a payload that can be directed to drop and ascend multiple times over its mission, dropping weather stations, seismometers (if they land a few they could image the core of mars if it has quakes) and other experiements, extending its mission for as long as possible by slowly dropping off this weight until it has no buoyancy gas left and ends up as a final destination station. youd have to be careful with the winds banging it into land features, it would be quite an adventure.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-22 07:01:17

2009?!!

That's like telling a kid Santa will be here in 5 years ... you might as well say 500 years!
I want it now, if not sooner!!!!!

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-25 04:31:26

it coudl be prety cheap for something really basic youd think, theres some proposal for a big expensive [http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/balloons.html]Mars Balloon, one idea is to have a payload that can be directed to drop and ascend multiple times over its mission, dropping weather stations, seismometers (if they land a few they could image the core of mars if it has quakes) and other experiements, extending its mission for as long as possible by slowly dropping off this weight until it has no buoyancy gas left and ends up as a final destination station. youd have to be careful with the winds banging it into land features, it would be quite an adventure.

If the skin of the balloon had built into it a form of solar power generator then the balloon if filled with the right gas could last for ages. Just think of the possibilities of a long term unmanned probe in the martian atmosphere, I like the idea of dropping the initial equipment on the surface. The worry of winds banging the balloon into land features is a problem, but if the balloon is placed at the right altitude it should not pose a major problem - unless of course it gets caught amongst storm force winds when there would be a good chance of it being destroyed. However the positives outway the negatives in my view, the chance to monitor the atmosphere and surface over a prolonged period prior to a manned mission would give us a good insight into what the will face from a better perspective than orbiting satallite and shortlived surface rovers.

atomoid · 2004-02-25 15:26:40

I'm not a space engineer, but i suspect that [http://www.space.com/businesstechnology … 218-1.html]Radioisotopic Thermal Generators might provide a better energy per weight ratio than solar panels for the baloon. They usually get electricity by heating dissimilar metals with the heat from the decaying plutonium, and since this process isn't that efficient, all that waste heat could be used to help increase the buoyancy of the gas in the ballon. but maybe its just not enough heat to make a dent in how big the baloon would have to be to carry the weight...

Mad Grad Student · 2004-02-27 22:38:11

Oops, when I first mentioned the hydrogen-ballon decent system I meant to include that part about how you could turn it into a sub-mission, but I gues I just forgot. I doubt that you'd want to put an RTG on the ballon, as that would add weight and cost to a part of the mission that probably wouldn't last more than a few weeks at best. The Martian atmosphere is a tough environment, especially for anythign flying in it, the ballon mission would just be a little icing on the cake for the whole MSL project.

The skycrane is actually a cool idea, if it works. It would be able to drop its cargo right where the bull's eye is every time, perfect for getting into tight places and for surviving the landing. If it works for MSL, NASA's definately going to try to use the system for Mars Sample Return.

Rxke · 2004-02-28 04:36:07

Yup. That sky crane is a much needed requirement for pin-point landings, esp. if you'd develop 'combination-missions'.
Hope it works out, and they get an idea to land the crane itself in one piece (should be possible, but tricky,with the *very sudden* weight decrease) Those cranes could come in handy later, as... cranes! To do some lifting stuff etc. when people start to put things together... The concept can be tested extensively on Earth, so i think they'll get it working fairly reliably.

(off-topic: MadGrad: is your avatar a piece of artwork by Don Lawrence?)

Mad Grad Student · 2004-02-28 22:56:59

(off-topic: MadGrad: is your avatar a piece of artwork by Don Lawrence?)

Nope, it's a rendering of a [http://www.thefutureiswild.com/flash/index.html]"flish," one of wild new animals a team of international scientists came up with to make the mini-series/"documentery" The Future is Wild. In it, they predicted what wildlife might look like in the future without humanity's overbearing prescence to screw it up (The ice age supposedly takes care of that ). One of these new creatures is the flish, a group of vertabrates that evolve 200 million years from now. After the extinction of birds, most of the vacant evolutionary niches were filled in by a group of fish descended from cod that jump strait from being ocean dwellers to masters of the air. I can't say I totally agree with their reasoning, but it certainly is wild!

One idea on the skycrane: would it be possible to test it out in the near term, perhaps by using it on a lunar probe? You could test its accuracy by telling it to land some place like right next to the Apollo 16 landing site, see how close it got, and as an added bonus it could send off a rover into the Lunar Alps. At least I'm pretty sure it was the Alps that Apollo 16 landed next to. Maybe that would finally shut up those that say the Apollo program is a conspiracy! :laugh:

Rxke · 2004-03-17 13:49:55

The rover is going to look for traces of (former) life, amino acids, using a miniaturized lab, [http://www.nature.com/nsu/040315/040315-9.html]http://www.nature.com/nsu/040315/040315-9.html

GraemeSkinner · 2004-03-17 14:13:35

The rover is going to look for traces of (former) life, amino acids, using a miniaturized lab, [http://www.nature.com/nsu/040315/040315-9.html]http://www.nature.com/nsu/040315/040315-9.html

Sounds like a clever idea - wish I'd thought of it. 2009 is just too far away though. Its just a pity we can not start a protest to get it started sooner

SBird · 2004-03-18 12:02:13

I might have missed it in the discussions above, but it seems that no one's mentined the fact that this rover will be RTG powered. This is a significant step forward, IMO for a rover. Instead of a 90-day rover that ends up running 6 months, we can expect to be able to get observations for a few years. Also, the massive increase in the number of scientific instruments is a welcome change. In some ways, the present rovers area disappointment since they really don't compare too favorably to the Viking landers 27 years ago.

I'm glad to see that a life detection setup is being planned again. The life detection chip is pretty ingenious, it replaces an HPLC with a mass of a couple of grams. I'm guessing they're probably using something like [http://www.probes.com/media/pis/mp02333.pdf]this for the amino acid detection.

Hopefully, someone can get them to shoehorn a miniature ISPP setup to at least test fuel production in an actual Martian environment.

SpaceNut · 2004-10-12 20:06:31

The lander hovering then lowering the sky hook reminds me of the shape of a plane. The main problem of the next generation rover is the down mass. I would say that we needed to think in terms of a gentle type landing for the more fragile instrumentation that it will contain.

I sort of like the other thread inflating of a balloon to slow it down even more than a parachute followed by retro rockets.

Question for the bouncing ball approach, what type of gas is used to inflate those? If inflated with helium rather than possible leftover hydrogen would this not have the same effect as one larger balloon?

Definetly the steerable parachutes would come in handy for this project also that is in another thread.

Much of the science lab detection is being discussed under the chilean desert life detecting rover.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-06 05:51:31

Aerojet Tests Engine Design For New Mars Rover
Talk about your rockets from the past.

Aerojet recently test-fired a Viking flight spare rocket engine assembly in order to help design a new engine which will deliver the next rover to the surface of Mars in 2009.
The rocket engine used in the test was originally built, tested and delivered in 1973 for the Viking program. The engine was put into storage after the successful landing of the Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecraft on Mars in 1976.
Aerojet is building three new 700 pound thrust monopropellant rocket engine assemblies to further evaluate design changes made to increase mission flexibility and life capability. Testing is planned to continue through 2005 to support technology development for JPL.
The most significant feature of the monopropellant engine is its ability to throttle from 15-100 percent thrust with a fixed propellant inlet pressure.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-12-06 08:05:26

Hmmm.
With regard to the chip they're planning to include in the array of instruments on the Mars Surface Laboratory (MSL), the one which detects amino acids, I think there may be a degree of ambiguity as to how specific and definitive the test really is.
According to the article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c … 1.DTL]THIS SITE :-

The device was developed by (Richard) Mathies and Alison Skelley, a graduate student in his lab. Mathies calls it a "microfabricated lab on a chip", ...
Then only last week, during experiments on the Marin Headlands, the entire system, chip and all, underwent its first field test. It detected left-handed amino acids with ease, Skelley said, ...

Earlier in the same article, were the following statements by Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla:-

My great hope is that we'll find some primitive life form there that preceded anything we know on Earth. ...
One major clue would be to detect microscopic traces of unique kinds of amino acids on Mars, Bada said, "because the only way you could possibly get amino acids at all is from biology."
The structure of the twenty amino acids on Earth is like a spiral, with their strands of molecules twisting around each other in a left-handed direction, Bada said. If amino acids twisted the other way, they could not possibly be Earthly molecules.
"If we saw evidence of right-handed amino acids on Mars, they would give us unique proof that Martian life really has existed there - or does exist", he said.

O.K., so apparently amino acids definitely mean life and right-handed amino acids would mean un-Earthly life.

This struck me as being rather curious because I remembered something about amino acids in connection with a meteorite which fell on Australia back in the 1960s. A quick google turned up http://www.panspermia.org/chiral.htm]THIS ARTICLE, and some of the most interesting parts are these:-

(The Title:) AMINO ACID ASYMMETRY IN THE MURCHISON METEORITE.
Most amino acids can exist in either a right-handed or left-handed form. In biology, however, only the left-handed forms are used. The original reason for this anomaly is not known. If life originates from nonliving chemicals there is no convincing reason for one form to be selected and not the other. Amino acids produced nonbiologically would have no obvious reason to accumulate excesses of either form. Now two biochemists at the University of Arizona have reported in Science that they found measurably more left-handed than right-handed versions of certain amino acids in the Murchison meteorite.

Straight away, we seem to have a contradiction here. This second article discusses amino acids produced both biologically and "nonbiologically".
Dr. Bada appears convinced "the only way" to get amino acids is through biology.

The Murchison meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite. These are generally believed to be remnants of spent comets. There is conclusive evidence that water once flowed through them. This one struck Earth on September 28, 1969, scattering fragments across pastures near Murchison, Victoria, Australia.

If Dr. Bada is correct about amino acids being produced exclusively by biology, then the Murchison meteorite should have been hailed as definitive proof of extraterrestrial life 35 years ago, even before its significant preponderance of laevorotatory amino acids was discovered.
As always, the spectre of terrestrial contamination reared its ugly head and tried to ruin the fun. But this seems to have been eliminated as a possibility:-

However, even before the new work by Cronin and Pizarello was reported, analyses of isotope ratios showed that the excess of left-handed amino acids in the meteorite was not the result of earthly contamination.
The new analysis by Cronin and Pizarello bypasses the contamination problem by testing for amino acids that are extremely rare on Earth — they couldn't be contaminants because they're not otherwise found here.

So, here we have a well-documented case of both left- and right-handed amino acids being found in cometary fragments. And nobody in the mainstream scientific community seems interested in declaring this to be proof of life beyond Earth.
There's even a prominent quote from Dr. Jeffrey Bada in the second article:- "Some unusual amino acids present in the Murchison Meteorite apparently do have small excesses of the L enantiomers...." !! (By 'L enantiomers', he means left-handed amino acids).
So the same guy who's promoting the "lab on a chip" for the MSL, touting the infallibility of amino acids on Mars as incontrovertible proof of past (or even present) life there, can sometimes regard amino acids as simple curiosities in meteorites!
???
The whole thing sounds way too confused for my liking.
With this kind of ambivalence in the scientific community about amino acids, even if we found only right-handed amino acids, or only left-handed amino acids, on Mars, how can we be sure somebody wouldn't put his hand up and say: "Probably just nonbiological material from an old cometary impact."
But .. but .. the material is all of one chirality (handedness)! Back comes the same guy: "Yeah, but the Murchison meteorite had a preponderance of left-handed aminos. Who's to say nonbiological processes can't produce all left- or right-handed aminos, and it's just that we haven't figured out how yet?"

Why aren't they putting an 'active biology' detector on the MSL? This lab-on-a-chip's data, on their own, are probably going to be wide open to interpretation, or misinterpretation, if the above mentioned confusion is anything to go by.
We could end up with a repeat of the Viking stalemate and another multi-decade wait for proof of martian life, if any.

Again I ask, given the controversy over the Viking life search results, and the fact that present-day life on Mars is far from eliminated as a possibility, why is NASA avoiding a comprehensive search for that life with the MSL?
???

SpaceNut · 2004-12-06 09:38:22

repost thought that I think we can identify actual living creatures that were derived from those amino acids from mars.

Brazilians find dinosaur linked to Europe Fossil comes from the age of Earth's super-continent

Brazil - Scientists have found well-preserved fossils of a new dinosaur species that lived 225 million years ago in southern Brazil but had its closest relatives in what is now Europe suggesting life was able to cross the once vast super-continent here, on migration of dinosaurs across that continent.

Scientists reconstruct ancestral genetic code Computer analysis blends paleontology and genomics in search for mammalian ancestor.

Researchers have reconstructed a long string of genetic code for what they believe is the common ancestor of placental mammals — a shrewlike creature that lived in Asia more than 75 million years ago.

genecode_2.standard.jpg

Now with all the possible genetic material that may have arrived for Mars meteorites. I think that we may see just that in the sequencing that is shown. Now with a higher iron content would it possibly change the genetic code pattern or at least for a few spiecies.

John Creighton · 2004-12-07 09:14:20

This is a pretty big vehicle. I could see the astronauts in the future welding a trailer hitch on it. Add some hydraulics to lift up the trailer and you have a jury-rigged dump truck.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-12-07 18:22:44

Hi SpaceNut.
Could you be more specific about the connection between using mathematical probability to reconstruct a portion of the likely genetic code of a common mammalian ancestor from 75 million years ago here on Earth, and the proposed search for amino acids in the martian regolith?
I confess I can't see your point.
You go on to say:-

Now with all the possible genetic material that may have arrived for Mars meteorites. I think that we may see just that in the sequencing that is shown. Now with a higher iron content would it possibly change the genetic code pattern or at least for a few spiecies.

Again, I can't grasp what you're suggesting here.
What genetic material are you referring to, with regard to martian meteorites? And which species might have their genetic code changed by iron content? What iron content?
I'm completely confused!

SpaceNut · 2004-12-07 20:47:37

Each letter in the genetic code is an amino acid and if they are constant I would expect to see the same combinations not different ones as seen in the patterns. Mars is much higher in iron content and any early life would probably form these same acids but with differing letter combinations. Now subplant a few dozen Mars meteors into earths early conditions and I believe we get a mixing of the possible genetic codes or blending at least.

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#1 2004-02-12 13:11:44

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#2 2004-02-12 19:29:56

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#3 2004-02-12 23:34:14

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#4 2004-02-21 06:04:21

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#5 2004-02-21 16:16:19

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#6 2004-02-21 18:04:02

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#7 2004-02-22 02:16:46

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#8 2004-02-22 02:42:41

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#9 2004-02-22 03:01:40

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#10 2004-02-22 07:01:17

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#11 2004-02-25 04:31:26

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#12 2004-02-25 15:26:40

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#13 2004-02-27 22:38:11

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#14 2004-02-28 04:36:07

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#15 2004-02-28 22:56:59

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#16 2004-03-17 13:49:55

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#17 2004-03-17 14:13:35

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#18 2004-03-18 12:02:13

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#19 2004-10-12 20:06:31

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#20 2004-12-06 05:51:31

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#21 2004-12-06 08:05:26

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#22 2004-12-06 09:38:22

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#23 2004-12-07 09:14:20

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#24 2004-12-07 18:22:44

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

#25 2004-12-07 20:47:37

Re: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover

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