NASA - MSL Updates

[Lee Jay]

Four frames per second:
http://www.msss.com/all_projects/msl-mardi.php

As Jim says, though, none transmitted in real time.

Thank you, and that's perfect!

IIRC, that's a big improvement over what we got from MER.  Wasn't that about 6 images total?

[ugordan]

IIRC, that's a big improvement over what we got from MER.  Wasn't that about 6 images total?

Yes, 3 DIMES images per rover. Phoenix was supposed to capture similar footage to MSL but a late-discovered incompatibility with other flight hardware caused it to be turned off instead.

[Jim]

And there's no flash memory that they could record an MPEG and upload it sometime later?

Think of the extra interest they'd actually capture in the general public if they could show how awesome this landing is going to be on TV...

 It wouldn't show any of the deployments.  All it would show is the surface approaching.   Nothing that would capture interest.

[Lee Jay]

IIRC, that's a big improvement over what we got from MER.  Wasn't that about 6 images total?

Yes, 3 DIMES images per rover. Phoenix was supposed to capture similar footage to MSL but a late-discovered incompatibility with other flight hardware caused it to be turned off instead.

Ah, yes, thanks.  It's all coming back to me!

http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/projectImage.cfm?Project=1&Image=65

Frankly, 4fps of the ground approaching should be pretty awesome, at least to me, even if it's not for a few weeks after landing.

Deploying a dish large enough to transmit real-time video during entry seems like a near-impossible engineering challenge, so that's obviously a non-starter.  Heck, we even lost KU from the orbiters due to stowing them inside the payload bay!  If we can't do it there, no way we could do it with a Mars lander, at least in any reasonable way.

[Duck]

It wouldn't show any of the deployments.  All it would show is the surface approaching.   Nothing that would capture interest.

So why not have another camera on it, then, specifically installed for shooting an ideal dramatic shot that would have looked awesome on the news?

Should they not have had any live footage from the moon during Apollo?  Since it's not scientific?

If they can fit an HD camera in the tiny little corner of an iPhone, I can't believe they couldn't mill out 10 grams of Al. from some panel somewhere in the chassis of the thing to make up the mass difference and send back HD footage of some of the more interesting components during landing.  I'm coming at this from the generation that is interested in space because it generates an emotion of excitement and hope for the future more than anything else.

As a mechanical designer, I was totally excited about the landing sequence, and now that I know there will be nothing to "watch" while it's happening I'm totally bummed.  I can't imagine that I'm the only person who would have been interested in seeing how it'll all work.

-Iain

[Lee Jay]

If they can fit an HD camera in the tiny little corner of an iPhone, I can't believe they couldn't mill out 10 grams of Al. from some panel somewhere in the chassis of the thing to make up the mass difference and send back HD footage of some of the more interesting components during landing.

Mars is VERY FAR AWAY, and it has an atmosphere.  Entry is going to be hot - nothing big enough to transmit anything like real-time video can be sticking out or it'll get burned off.  Once slowed down, where are you going to put a camera that can actually see something that also has a large already-deployed dish that could send back video real-time?

It's simply not doable.  The camera is 1% of the problem (maybe less).

Watch this and think about what you are saying:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/E37Ss9Tm36c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/E37Ss9Tm36c&rel=1</a>

[ugordan]

Should they not have had any live footage from the moon during Apollo?  Since it's not scientific?

Please point me to any *live* footage of the Apollo landing sequences.

While you're searching for that, here's something else to ponder. At the time MSL lands, Mars will be 646 times more distant than the average distance of the Moon from the Earth. That means any radio signal will be 418 thousand times weaker than it would be from the Moon.

Now think about what you're asking for here once again and be grateful we'll be getting any 4 fps HD resolution sequences at all.

[Jim]

I'm coming at this from the generation that is interested in space because it generates an emotion of excitement and hope for the future more than anything else.

Why is that no different than any other generation.

[Jim]

If they can fit an HD camera in the tiny little corner of an iPhone, I can't believe they couldn't mill out 10 grams of Al. from some panel somewhere in the chassis of the thing to make up the mass difference and send back HD footage of some of the more interesting components during landing. 

It isn't the mass of the camera.  It is the data management.  And it not just the mass of the camera, there is power and data cables and the hardware to mount them.  Can an camera from an Iphone handle radiation, vacuum, hot and cold for 1 year before being used?

[rcoppola]

No matter how many times I see that decent, landing animation, I am blown away by the sheer audacity of this mission. My complete respect and admiration for the engineers who designed and built this whole system. It's intellectually and creatively awe inspiring. I hope they know there are many people out here in awe of what they are hopefully about to accomplish.

[sdsds]

Four frames per second is going to be awesome. Since the surface isn't changing it should be possible to interpolate between frames and generate whatever playback frame rate you want.

Iain, the challenges inherent in this stuff frustrate just about everyone. You might want to read some about the Phoenix descent imaging camera, which was much like the one on MSL. IIRC in the end it was allowed to take only one frame for fear that transferring data from camera memory to system memory during descent would cause the system bus to lock up (or something). Those guys spent years of their lives on that hardware, and then through no fault of their own it was essentially unused.

[racshot65]

Wow !

Curiosity's Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) Acquires Test Image En Route To Mars

http://www.msss.com/science-images/mahli-acquires-test-image-en-route-to-mars.php

[racshot65]

Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-135

[stockman]

Now exactly 6 months to the day since launch... MSL now just 23 million km's from Mars...  Now 71 days to landing...

[jacqmans]

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-108

NASA HOSTS TELECONFERENCE ABOUT ROVER EN ROUTE TO MARS LANDING

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at noon EDT, June
11, to provide a status update on the Aug. 5, 2012, landing of the
most advanced rover ever to be sent to Mars.

NASA's Curiosity rover, carried by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
spacecraft, will land near the Martian equator at approximately 10:31
p.m. PDT, Aug. 5, (1:31 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6).

Panelists include:
-- Dave Lavery, MSL program executive, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Michael Meyer, lead scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA
Headquarters
-- Pete Theisinger, MSL project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.
-- John Grotzinger, MSL project scientist, California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

For dial-in information, reporters must e-mail their name, media
affiliation and telephone number to Dwayne Brown at
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by 11:30 a.m. EDT, June 11.

Audio of the event will be streamed live online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

For more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl