3) Robotic Hatch Arm: A robotic arm, mounted inside the capsule, that pulls out devices from the interior and places them on the surface; said devices would be on the small size; Sojourners but not MERs for instance. Essentially a larger version of the Phoenix and InSight robotic arms.
Deploy an evolved RoboSimian instead. It would cost a ton to make something like this capable of operating on Mars, but the flexibility of getting out, deploying experiments, and coming back to charge and warm up would be likely worth it.
Quote from: savuporo on 05/20/2017 09:52 pmDeploy an evolved RoboSimian instead. It would cost a ton to make something like this capable of operating on Mars, but the flexibility of getting out, deploying experiments, and coming back to charge and warm up would be likely worth it.So you want a robotic monkey?
It's quite incredible to think that the first object to return from Mars may well not be a tiny unmanned sample canister, but a huge rocket ship descending on a plume of fire. Heinlein would have been proud.
Red Dragon could deploy a small rover with ground penetrating radar to gather ground truth about believed sub surface frozen water deposits. More exotic, add a drill capable of boring 5-10 meters or so to validate the GPR detected ice. Seems to me that extensive water readily available and in an area suitable for solar power is the prime driver for colony site selection. Land and find out in several places before wasting an ITS visit.
Quote from: redliox on 05/20/2017 09:37 pm3) Robotic Hatch Arm: A robotic arm, mounted inside the capsule, that pulls out devices from the interior and places them on the surface; said devices would be on the small size; Sojourners but not MERs for instance. Essentially a larger version of the Phoenix and InSight robotic arms.Deploy an evolved RoboSimian instead. It would cost a ton to make something like this capable of operating on Mars, but the flexibility of getting out, deploying experiments, and coming back to charge and warm up would be likely worth it.
Quote from: philw1776 on 05/21/2017 12:31 amRed Dragon could deploy a small rover with ground penetrating radar to gather ground truth about believed sub surface frozen water deposits. More exotic, add a drill capable of boring 5-10 meters or so to validate the GPR detected ice. Seems to me that extensive water readily available and in an area suitable for solar power is the prime driver for colony site selection. Land and find out in several places before wasting an ITS visit.Robotic drilling to any depth is really hard. And you don't need to go that deep to reach ice in the northern plains of Mars. Two to three metres should be more than enough.
Quote from: Dalhousie on 05/23/2017 02:31 amQuote from: philw1776 on 05/21/2017 12:31 amRed Dragon could deploy a small rover with ground penetrating radar to gather ground truth about believed sub surface frozen water deposits. More exotic, add a drill capable of boring 5-10 meters or so to validate the GPR detected ice. Seems to me that extensive water readily available and in an area suitable for solar power is the prime driver for colony site selection. Land and find out in several places before wasting an ITS visit.Robotic drilling to any depth is really hard. And you don't need to go that deep to reach ice in the northern plains of Mars. Two to three metres should be more than enough.Robotic drilling to depth of 2 meters into the Lunar soil was achieved by the Soviet Luna 24 in August, 1976. Four decades have passed since. It should not be THAT difficult today by US technology.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_24
KISS...keep it simple, Sherlock. The primary purpose of Red Dragon in 2020 is demonstration of supersonic retropropulsion. The objectives are engineering. The Europeans and some commercial entities have expressed interest in science payloads according to Shotwell and NASA will undoubtedly provide some science instruments given the shift to the 2020 window. But 2 years isn't a lot of time and I can't imagine any entity will risk a great deal of resources developing science payloads on what is basically an engineering test. I expect to see something more modest like a cantilever pallet shoved out the hatch of Red Dragon containing a few science instruments. Assuming Red Dragon lands upright w/o making a hole in the ground.
KISS...keep it simple, Sherlock. The primary purpose of Red Dragon in 2020 is demonstration of supersonic retropropulsion.
Quote from: TaurusLittrow on 06/03/2017 11:12 amKISS...keep it simple, Sherlock. The primary purpose of Red Dragon in 2020 is demonstration of supersonic retropropulsion.I'm pretty sure Falcon 9 first stage had already demonstrated supersonic retropropulsion. Repeatedly.