Re: drones (or whatever you call them)Quote from: Star One on 05/07/2016 12:59 pmI hope it does get onto the rover as it sounds an interesting idea.There's a time and a place to be adding capabilities and that is during the instrument selection process. If the budgets had been bigger, scientists would have proposed adding more instruments and the project could have traded the value of those versus the value of adding a drone. Once all that has been done, nothing else should be added. Adding capabilities in an undisciplined way is one of the leading causes of cost overruns. A drone (or whatever) might not be such a bad idea if it could be built from off the shelf components. As temperatures drop, material properties change. Steels and rubbers become brittle, lubricants freeze and entire classes of engineering materials become unusable. Off the shelf components are designed for earth surface temperatures, which are rarely colder than -20 to - 40 Celsius. Mars gets a lot colder than that. I read somewhere that Li-ion batteries don't like the cold, and those are critical to consumer drone technology.You might try to keep the drone in a heated hangar, but now you require an energy budget to keep the hangar warm. Electricity that goes to heat the hanger means less electricity available to move the rover.You already have overhead imagery from Hi-rise. Does a drone really add enough to that to be worth the cost.?
I hope it does get onto the rover as it sounds an interesting idea.
Quote from: as58 on 05/07/2016 04:38 amJWST is passively cooled, so I wouldn't call it cryogenic (Spitzer, on the other hand, was cryogenic during its primary mission). As far as I know the goal was always to make the optics as cold as practicable in a passively cooled telescope.This is another example of materials issues caused by low temperatures. A good material to build optical systems out of is silicon carbide. That doesn't work at low temperatures, which forces both JWST and Spitzer to use beryllium. Beryllium is toxic and always seems to be very costly. I definitely view JWST as cryogenic, because it operates at temperatures low enough to require special materials. If they had avoided requirements creep they could have stayed with silicon carbide and JWST would have cost a lot less.
JWST is passively cooled, so I wouldn't call it cryogenic (Spitzer, on the other hand, was cryogenic during its primary mission). As far as I know the goal was always to make the optics as cold as practicable in a passively cooled telescope.
Quote from: Don2 on 05/06/2016 10:20 pmSpace science flagships in general have a way of growing in cost and ambition. As a replacement for Hubble, the science community originally asked for a 4m diameter mirror which was cool but not cryogenic. Somehow that morphed into the 6.5m deployable cryogenic monster we have today. At the present, Europa Clipper seems to be in the process of gaining a lander, while Mars 2020 has added a drone.JWST is passively cooled, so I wouldn't call it cryogenic (Spitzer, on the other hand, was cryogenic during its primary mission). As far as I know the goal was always to make the optics as cold as practicable in a passively cooled telescope.
Space science flagships in general have a way of growing in cost and ambition. As a replacement for Hubble, the science community originally asked for a 4m diameter mirror which was cool but not cryogenic. Somehow that morphed into the 6.5m deployable cryogenic monster we have today. At the present, Europa Clipper seems to be in the process of gaining a lander, while Mars 2020 has added a drone.
Quote from: as58 on 05/07/2016 04:38 amQuote from: Don2 on 05/06/2016 10:20 pmSpace science flagships in general have a way of growing in cost and ambition. As a replacement for Hubble, the science community originally asked for a 4m diameter mirror which was cool but not cryogenic. Somehow that morphed into the 6.5m deployable cryogenic monster we have today. At the present, Europa Clipper seems to be in the process of gaining a lander, while Mars 2020 has added a drone.JWST is passively cooled, so I wouldn't call it cryogenic (Spitzer, on the other hand, was cryogenic during its primary mission). As far as I know the goal was always to make the optics as cold as practicable in a passively cooled telescope.If JWST is passively cooled, what is the cryocooler for? It has been one of the technological banes of the project. And they intend to work one instrument at 8K or so.
Europe’s ExoMars rover in 'last chance saloon'http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36251642
But Mr Woerner could not hide his irritation at the constantly rising price Esa was being asked to pay."The one who is the source of the delays - we should be very carefully looking at whether they are also eligible to get some extra money, because they are the reason we are delayed," he said."From my point of view it's very strange if you say, 'OK, I do it later, and therefore I get more money'."
We will have a discussion with the main member states involved with the program. Then we’ll see how we can manage, and whether we can manage. I am not saying we can manage it. There are cost increases with the delay and there were cost increases from a technical point of view. Again, I don’t fully understand it after all the discussions we had in the past. I thought we were finished with the numbers. Now we have new numbers and this does not make me happy.
Man, that's a great slogan. I hope they paint it on the side of the rover: "The Last Chance Saloon."
Meeting in Paris, delegations agreed to put the project, which has experienced serial delays, on to a fresh schedule.They also injected an immediate extra sum of €77m (£59m), which will keep the ExoMars robot in development while a full and final solution to its financial problems is sought.The aim is to have all matters resolved for a meeting of ministers in December.Dr David Parker is the agency's director of human spaceflight and robotic exploration.He told BBC News: "The challenges were set out to member states, and in the council meeting [on Wednesday] they were asked the fundamental questions: how important is this project; do you want to continue? And the very, very clear message came back that this remains a high priority for scientific and technological reasons."
Not to turn this into a SpaceX thread, but assuming Russia has issues that ESA can't stand for, what about stuffing their rover into a red dragon?
Quote from: redliox on 06/17/2016 07:26 amNot to turn this into a SpaceX thread, but assuming Russia has issues that ESA can't stand for, what about stuffing their rover into a red dragon?They can't get it out. It's not designed with an off-ramp. This question has been asked too many times on this forum, and I really think it should rest until there is any indication SpaceX is planning any rover.