The Ongoing Mars Explorer Thread (1 Viewer)

[Peter Kline]

It's going to be disguised as a Mini Cooper so the Martians will not be concerned and attack it.

 

[Malcolm R]

The MDF* must be getting sick of us lobbing our space junk at them. They probably figured if they let the Pathfinder do a little exploration and find nothing, we'd leave them alone. They don't know us very well, do they?


*Martian Defense Force

 

[CharlesD]

Fingers crossed for Saturday night. Hopefully this one will have more luck than Beagle 2 appears to have had.

 

[BrianShort]

You can download a scaled down version of the actual software that NASA will be using to control both rovers.

Maestro Software

I just finished downloading it, but haven't tried it. It does have some somewhat hefty memory requirements (256 megs) and there are versions for all platforms. Periodically, they will be releasing data from the actual landing site as it is sent back my Spirit, so you will be able to play around with the real stuff. It's supplied with test rover data.


*trying it out now*

It runs under Java, and on my machine (AMD Athlon 1700+, 256 megs ram, GeForce 2 GTS 32 meg) it runs quite slow, so much so that I doubt I'll use it much, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Brian

 

[Peter Kline]

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

So when does Opus the penguin meet Julie K?

 

[Peter Kline]

You can go to NASA TV to watch webcast of events from JPL during the landing tonightstarating at appx 7:30 PM Pacific Time. Landing is scheduled for an hour later.

 

[BrianShort]

I'm watching NASA TV right now. Even though we have DirecTV, we don't have an eliptical dish (being in Alaska, we even need a 3' dish to get a strong signal), so we can't get NASA TV though that, but the stream I'm getting over the net is not bad at all.

Brian

 

[Peter Kline]

Me two (or three).

 

[BrianShort]

LANDED!!!!

 

[BrianShort]

They aren't getting a signal right now though... hmmm...

Apparently they lost signal from Pathfinder when it was bouncing and rolling, so this is probably normal... I hope

 

[Francois Caron]

It's bouncing! They're waiting for a steady signal after its final landing now. They say it may keep bouncing for another seven minutes. Ouch!

 

[Peter Kline]

Depending on how it finally settled down, Spirits attennas may not be in proper alignment yet. It could be tomorrow before confirmation that the craft is OK comes in. The Mars Global Surveyor picked up telemetry from the lander and is currently sending it back to mission control. They are trying to determine if the info sent back from MGS included info after the landing. Stand by........ CNN is covering things live.

UPDATE: They just received a tone from the lander on the surface!. It's OK so far.

 

[BrianShort]

It also landed base down, which is the best we could have hoped for. It should be opening up presently. NASA TV says that is almost done.

Brian

 

[BrianShort]

News conference on now

 

[CharlesD]

base plate down just like Pathfinder!

 

[BrianShort]

They're saying that there is a pretty good chance we'll get pictures tonight.

 

[Francois Caron]

THE PICTURES ARE IN!!!

I've yet to see them aside from what I've seen on the MSNBC streaming video, but they're definitely coming in!

 

[BrianShort]

Very, very awesome. Can't wait to get something for a wallpaper So far this mission is going perfectly.

 

[BrianShort]

Just from TV, but better than nothing