MSL now has a name...Curiousity

[EarthlingX]

http://www.wired.com : Where Will Next Mars Rover Land? ( gallery )

By Lisa Grossman

September 24, 2010

The next Mars rover is only about a year away from taking off, and it's already stretching its arms and spinning its wheels in a lab in California. But scientists are still debating exactly where to drop it.

Curiosity (or more formally, the Mars Science Laboratory) is slated to launch in late 2011, and its chief objective is looking for life. That means landing in a spot where the soils formed in water, and where rocks could have preserved chemical traces of living organisms.

Now, after four years of deliberation, the rover crew has narrowed the choice down to their four favorites: a rugged valley full of water-bearing clays; and three craters that may once have been basins, lakes or river deltas. Hundreds of planetary scientists will descend on Monrovia, California, next week to continue the debate.

...

Mawrth Vallis

One of the top contenders is Mawrth Vallis, one of the oldest valleys on Mars. Mawrth's appeal comes from its mineral composition: It's chock-full of clay-like minerals called phyllosilicates that form only in the presence of water.

...

Eberswalde Crater

Rover drivers are also tempted by Eberswalde Crater, just south of the Martian equator. Eberswalde is considered some of the best evidence on all of Mars that the planet had persistent water. Just to the left of the 40-mile-wide basin lies a wide, meandering delta.

...

Holden Crater

Just to the south of Eberswalde lies Holden Crater, another possible ancient lake that may have lived through a catastrophic flood.

...

Gale Crater

The final contender is Gale Crater, a hole 96 miles across with a mountain nearly 4 miles high stretching up from its center. Several gorges flow into the crater, but nothing flows out.

...

 

[3488]

At the moment Mawrth Vallis is my favourite landing site for MSL Curiosity.

Reasons are:

1). Mawrth Vallis is deep enought to have exposed rock strata to ancient times.

2). Mawrth Vallis has ancient volcanic rocks as well as ancient to more recent sedimentary rocks.

3). Mawrth Vallis has the potential of providing a large (grab bag) of differing rock types in a small area (Mars Pathfinder in 1997 certainly validated that thought process in Ares Vallis).

3). Mawrth Vallis will also show differing weathering process as older rock layers are exposed.

4). Mawrth Vallis at ground level may reveal more about the ancient martian magnetosphere.

5). Mawrth Vallis may even have fossilized martian microbes (if they exist).

I am off out now, I will be back to upload some MRO HiRISE imagery later of Mawrth Vallis.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Below clickable thumbnails of close ups of MRO HiRISE images of potential MSL Curiosity landing sites within my favourite shortlisted site Mawrth Vallis. Each image covers an area only a few hundred metres wide. As can be seen, Mawrth Vallis offers a diversity of features & elevations within short distances.









An impact crater approx 1 KM wide in Mawrth Vallis.


Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Below clickable thumbnails of close ups of MRO HiRISE images of potential MSL Curiosity landing sites within Eberswalde Crater. Each image covers an area only a few hundred metres wide. Unlike Mawrth Vallis, much of this terrain appears to be concentrated within a singular geological unit, but there are some interesting outcrops, hills & inverted channels.







Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

Thanks More food for my screensaver ( i need more monitors )


http://www.planetary.org : Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: A review

By Emily Lakdawalla

Sep. 27, 2010 | 15:59 PDT | 22:59 UTC

Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, about 200 scientists and engineers will sit in an over-air-conditioned room in Monrovia, California (which must have been one of the cool spots in the Los Angeles area) to participate in what is officially titled the "Fourth Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Community Workshop." The word "community" is what makes this meeting different from nearly every other meeting taking place in the preparation for the next Mars landing: today's meeting (and the three like it that happened before, and the one more like it that will happen in the spring) are open to anybody. Anybody who has any interest in where the Curiosity rover will land is permitted to attend, listen to the arguments for the four possible landing sites, listen to the discussions of what Curiosity may be able to accomplish at any of the sites, ask questions, and comment.

The decision of where to land the rover will not be made by this group, either today or at the final meeting. That decision is, ultimately, the responsibility of NASA Headquarters, which will make the decision based only partially on the input of the science community. Still, I think it's remarkable (and good) that the community is invited to participate.

...

Here's a review of what science Curiosity is intended to do when she finally lands on Mars, about exactly one Mars year from now. These words are the official ones, taken from this presentation (PDF, 2 MB). Overall, the goal is to "Explore and quantitatively assess a local region on Mars' surface as a potential habitat for life, past or present." In more detail, what Curiosity will do to achieve this goal is to:

..

(hint - read the article )


I had to add this :

crism.jhuapl.edu : MRO CRISM - MSL Landing Site Selection

This web site contains browse versions of CRISM hyperspectral, targeted observations of the four finalist candidate MSL landing sites, and links to the hyperspectal data. CRISM observations shown here have been newly reprocessed to include several upgrades from previous version of the data:

...

 

[Gravity_Ray]

The more I read about the MSL the more one fact stands out to me.

In every article about the MSL there is usually one paragraph about the fact that the rover is powered by a nuclear electric power source. Usually there is a quick sentence about how this is supposed to be an improvement over the MER's. Something about the fact that the MSL can explore during the night or during less sunny seasons and basically go where the MER’s cannot.

However, the fact that I mentioned is the life of the nuclear electrical power source of the MSL. It is designed to work for 1 Mars year (about 2 Earth years). How is that better than the MER's? The MER's have been on Mars since January of 2004, that’s over 6 Earth years.

Isn’t solar power in fact a better power source for a Mars rover than nuclear electric? Once the plutonium expires then the MSL rover will turn off. But every spring the MER's are up and at em again. I think in general the MSL is a much more capable rover, but not when it comes to its life time.

 

[EarthlingX]

www.planetary.org : Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 1 notes: Introduction, biosignatures, and mineralogy

By Emily Lakdawalla

Sep. 28, 2010 | 15:57 PDT | 22:57 UTC

I apologize in advance for the expanse of text below, but I hope that some of you will find the details interesting. If I took the time to edit these down and plug in lots of pretty pictures from presentations, they'd never get posted! They are my notes from yesterday, the first day of the fourth Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Community Workshop (see here for the significance of "community"). I'm a reasonably fast typist and tried to write down some of the better comments verbatim, but wasn't recording; any errors in transcription or paraphrase are mine and I'll gladly correct them if I have missed someone's meaning! My editorial comments are enclosed in brackets. [] Here is the official program (Word Document format).

...

 

[3488]

Thanks for the updates EarthlingX.

Like the CRISM observations of the four sites. Must be a very recent update as I did look for CRISM updates concerning the four MSL Curiosity sites recently!!!!

The more I read about the MSL the more one fact stands out to me.

In every article about the MSL there is usually one paragraph about the fact that the rover is powered by a nuclear electric power source. Usually there is a quick sentence ab.........

Hi Gravity_Ray,

Due to mass. MSL is so much more massive then the MERs. So much so that in order for solar arrays to be used for the mission that MSL is due to carry out, they would be enormous, so big, that they would add too much extra mass & that driving would be extrememly cumbersome.

Also what would the very low night time temperatures do to such huge arrays on the surface???

It is worth remembering that sunlight on Mars only averages 44% as strong as that on Earth or the Moon. Much easier with an RTG.

If MSL was going to drice on Mercury, that would not be a problem (average solar incidence there is approc 9 times that on Earth, 7 times at Aphelion, 11 times at Perihelion), but Mars is too far from the Sun for such an energy hungry craft to use solar arrays.

Not such a big a problem for the MERs or Sojourner or a static lander like Mars Pathfinder or Phoenix Mars Lander.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

Like the CRISM observations of the four sites. Must be a very recent update as I did look for CRISM updates concerning the four MSL Curiosity sites recently!!!!

Yes, it was still hot when i dropped it in

www.jpl.nasa.gov : Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

September 29, 2010


This artist's concept shows NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, whose Mars Climate Sounder instrument has been profiling the Martian atmosphere for four years. The instrument has just begun a campaign to examine atmospheric conditions for the Martian season and hour when the next Mars rover will land in 2012.

PASADENA, Calif. -- What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012?

An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a four-week campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars year before the arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. A Mars year equals 687 Earth days.

The planet's thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide is highly repeatable from year to year at the same time of day and seasonal date during northern spring and summer on Mars.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps the distribution of temperature, dust, and water ice in the atmosphere. Temperature variations with height indicate how fast air density changes and thus the rates at which the incoming spacecraft slows down and heats up during its descent.

"It is currently one Mars year before the Mars Science Laboratory arrival season," said atmospheric scientist David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This campaign will provide a set of observations to support the Mars Science Laboratory engineering team and Mars atmospheric modelers. The information will constrain the expected climate at their landing season. It will also help define the range of possible weather conditions on landing day."

During the four years the Mars Climate Sounder has been studying the Martian atmosphere, its observations have seen conditions only at about three in the afternoon and three in the morning. For the new campaign, the instrument team is inaugurating a new observation mode, looking to both sides as well as forward. This provides views of the atmosphere earlier and later in the day by more than an hour, covering the range of possible times of day that the rover will pass through the atmosphere before landing.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, provided the Mars Climate Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Science Laboratory projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more about NASA's Mars exploration program, see http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov .

 

[centsworth_II]

... in order for solar arrays to be used for the mission that MSL is due to carry out, they would be enormous, so big, that they would add too much extra mass & that driving would be extrememly cumbersome....

Here's an interesting quote from The Martian Chronicles concerning future solar powered rovers vs the nuclear powered MSL.

"Irwin... made the interesting argument that MSL is likely our only chance, at least within the next decade or two, of sending a plutonium-powered rover to Mars that is capable of landing at a site as far south as Holden and Eberswalde, whereas Gale or Mawrth could be accessed by a later, solar-powered rover."

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Thanks for the updates EarthlingX.

Like the CRISM observations of the four sites. Must be a very recent update as I did look for CRISM updates concerning the four MSL Curiosity sites recently!!!!

The more I read about the MSL the more one fact stands out to me.

In every article about the MSL there is usually one paragraph about the fact that the rover is powered by a nuclear electric power source. Usually there is a quick sentence ab.........

Hi Gravity_Ray,

Due to mass. MSL is so much more massive then the MERs. So much so that in order for solar arrays to be used for the mission that MSL is due to carry out, they would be enormous, so big, that they would add too much extra mass & that driving would be extrememly cumbersome.

Also what would the very low night time temperatures do to such huge arrays on the surface???

It is worth remembering that sunlight on Mars only averages 44% as strong as that on Earth or the Moon. Much easier with an RTG.

If MSL was going to drice on Mercury, that would not be a problem (average solar incidence there is approc 9 times that on Earth, 7 times at Aphelion, 11 times at Perihelion), but Mars is too far from the Sun for such an energy hungry craft to use solar arrays.

Not such a big a problem for the MERs or Sojourner or a static lander like Mars Pathfinder or Phoenix Mars Lander.

Andrew Brown.

Thanks for the information. I understand the reasoning when you explain that due to weight restrictions nuclear power actually made sense.

However, my point was that nuclear power will run out after 2 Earth years. Whereas the MER’s will continue to work as long as every once in a while a wind goes over them and cleans the solar arrays. So technically they should last much longer (and they have).

But it makes sense that the MLS should have the nuclear power so that it can go where the MER’s couldn’t. It should be able to do things that the MER’s couldn’t, so there wont be over lap.

 

[EarthlingX]

Just as a side note, MSL can also drive 10 times faster than MERs.

Emily Lakdawalla's update :

www.planetary.org : Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 2: Reports from Ryan Anderson

Sep. 30, 2010 | 09:37 PDT | 16:37 UTC

I left the first day of the Fourth Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Community Workshop on Monday just as they were getting in to the site-specific presentations. I left with no concern that I'd miss anything, though, because I knew that once he got done presenting his own work on Gale Crater, Cornell grad student Ryan Anderson would be taking notes and blogging the presentations on the other three sites. Here are links to his detailed and well-illustrated blog entries:

* First, his preview on Gale crater: "Gale Crater Geomorphology Paper – Published!"
* This one overlaps with my post from the first day: 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 1
* The 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 2 – Mawrth
* The 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 2 – Holden Crater
* The 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 2 – Eberswalde Crater

I attended the first half of yesterday, and will hopefully get my notes from that posted later today -- after about a billion other things that I need to post first!

...

 

[centsworth_II]

Just as a side note, MSL can also drive 10 times faster than MERs.

That's not right.

From Emily Lakdawalla:
"Sean Haggart, the mobility engineer doing the narration, mentioned in the video that Curiosity's top speed is 4 centimeters per second, which is actually slower than what I've heard quoted for Spirit and Opportunity's top speed (5 cm/sec)."

 

[EarthlingX]

This is where i found this, but i think i saw it somewhere else too :

Wiki : Mars Science Laboratory - Speed

Once on the surface, the MSL rover will be able to roll over obstacles approaching 75 centimeters (30 in) high. Maximum terrain-traverse speed is estimated to be 90 meters (300 ft) per hour via automatic navigation, however, average traverse speeds will likely be about 30 meters (100 ft) per hour, based on variables including power levels, difficulty of the terrain, slippage, and visibility. MSL is expected to traverse a minimum of 12 miles (19 km) in its two-year mission.

Perhaps it is more like 'it can cover 10x distance per day' ?

marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov : MSL - Wheels and Legs

The rover has a top speed on flat hard ground of 4 centimeters per second (a little over 1.5 inches per second).

Dr C, when asked 'How fast are rovers ?:

Me: how fast are rovers ?
Dr C: The rover design for the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) has a top speed on flat hard ground of 5 centimeters (2 inches) per second. However, in order to ensure a safe drive, the rover is equipped with hazard avoidance software that causes the rover to stop and reassess its location every few seconds. So, over time, the vehicle achieves an average speed of 1 centimeter per second. The rover is programmed to drive for roughly 10 seconds, then stop to observe and understand the terrain it has driven into for 20 seconds, before moving safely onward for another 10 seconds.

Ok, seems like i'll have to curb my enthusiasm a bit .. Can we haggle to about 5x distance per day ? :roll:

 

[centsworth_II]

...Can we haggle to about 5x distance per day ?

I don't think so.

Again from The Planetary Society Blog: (Next to last paragraph.)
"When Curiosity gets there, she'll be able to drive at 4.2 centimeters per second (half that if she's navigating autonomously, a quarter that if she's using visual odometry), traversing around 100-150 meters per driving sol, and she should manage to drive at least 20 kilometers over her lifetime..."(I think she means "two year primary mission," not "lifetime"!)

100-150 meters per driving sol. The six year old Opportunity has lately been making 70-100 meter/sol drives on a regular basis. In her younger days, she did have 100-150 meter driving sols. So both the maximum speed and daily driving distance seem to be similar for MER and MSL.

Coincidentally, Opportunity has been traveling for just over two years since leaving Victoria Crater. In the first two years since leaving Victoria, she has traveled about 11km. Remember, she's an old girl now, and going on 24km for her mission.

Speed is not everything. MSL will be able to do SO MUCH MORE science than a MER. But what MSL will not do is cruise around the surface of Mars much quicker than the MERs.

 

[EarthlingX]

Using info from marsrover.nasa.gov : Update: Spirit and Opportunity
Total odometry for Opportunity on 2010-09-29 = 23,525.07 meters (23.53 kilometers, or 14.62 miles).
Total odometry for Spirit on 2010-09-29 = 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).

That is 2604m per year on average.

Curiosity is expected to drive for 20 km in 2 years, or 10 km/year. Still not 5x times that much, but close.

There is also no problem with less winter light, dust on solar panels, it can also drive over bigger obstacles. MERs are making close to 2 times per day of expected distance, due to improvements in hazard avoidance, and i see no reason why Curiosity SW would not be improved, once they know what they deal with.

Wiki says :

The MSL rover will be launched by an Atlas V 541 rocket and will be expected to operate for at least 1 Martian year (668 Martian sols/686 Earth days) as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover.

That one is without a reference though, kind of a wishful thinking ..

If MERs are doing their best with 100-150m per day, MSL can do this in an hour and a half drive, though i doubt she will be able to see much racing like that.

 

[centsworth_II]

There are different ways of looking at it. It looks to me that at their respective best the MER and MSL top speeds and daily drive distances are about the same.

In the real world, things happen. Mechanical problems, stops in interesting locations for long periods of time. Are you really going to hold it against Opportunity that she stopped for a year in Victoria and half a year in Endurance, not doing a lot of roving over those periods of time?

I think the best comparison of roving ability is the 11km that Opportunity traveled in the first two years since leaving Victoria Crater. And that still includes at least half a dozen science stops. If MSL travels 22km in her first two years, that will be twice what Opportunity has done in her fifth and sixth years.

Re:
Wiki says :
The MSL rover... as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover.

A bit presumptuous as Opportunity is still going!


I'll say one thing, and it's not about speed or distance. With those big wheels and long arm, not to mention the laser, I don't expect to see a lot of futzing about on target approaches the way you sometimes see with the MERs.

 

[EarthlingX]

Yea, something along this line. Can't wait to see

Let's just hope everything goes well with this rock zapping and sniffing monster, even if there are no speed records.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Should point out that Spirit hasn't moved since the begining of 2010, so saying the rovers are moving should be modified to the rover (Opportunity) is moving.

 

[EarthlingX]

www.planetary.org : Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 3: Engineering constraints

Oct. 1, 2010 | 12:36 PDT | 19:36 UTC

By Emily Lakdawalla

Here's my final pile of notes from the Fourth Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Community Workshop, taken on the morning of Wednesday, September 29. The powerpoint presentations are now mostly online! I will save you all a lot of reading time and tell you the two big conclusions from nearly everybody's talks:

We can now see just about every hazard that could possibly cause Curiosity to fail during landing using actual data, not models.

There are no hazards that we can see at any of the four landing sites that make the engineers nervous. Any one of the four sites would produce the represent the safest landing site (in terms of predicted hazards) that we have ever had on Mars.

...

 

[EarthlingX]

martianchronicles.wordpress.com : The 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 3 – Final Discussion

Posted on October 2, 2010 at 8:32 pm

We wrapped up the landing site workshop on wednesday afternoon by revisiting each of the four sites and discussing them in turn. Unfortunately, the way that we did this was very disappointing, and made for a frustrating afternoon.

The discussion was centered around a word document that was projected up on the screen in the room. Over lunch, the meeting leaders had conferred and listed what they thought were the key points for each site that everyone agreed with, along with areas of future work. But they should have known that getting a room of 200 scientists to agree with something is nearly impossible, and it didn’t help that their list of points was a mish-mash of actual, irrefutable observations (e.g. “there are strong clay mineral signatures at Mawrth”, or “there is a huge layered mound at Gale”) and complete speculations (e.g. “the delta at Eberswalde preserves organic molecules” or “the layered rocks at Holden are likely lake deposits”) and everything in between.

The result was that we spent most of the afternoon going through this document line by line and debating word choices and phrasing and grammar. It was incredibly frustrating, to the point where I almost had to leave the room. By the end, there were probably only five or so people actively participating, while everyone else in the room silently suffered through watching this document being written by committee.

...
...

So, that’s how I think the voting would go if we had voted at this meeting. My own ranked order shuffled around throughout the meeting: each site made a very convincing argument, so tended to jump higher on my list until the next site presented its case. Now, with a few days of perspective, I would rank the sites in this order: 1. Eberswalde, 2. Gale, 3. Mawrth, 4. Holden. I personally put Gale ahead of Mawrth because even though we don’t know the depositional setting for either site, at Gale there is enough stratigraphy that you get multiple chances to find a habitable environment.

Of course, there are caveats to this. If Eberswalde really did form from melted runoff caused by the Holden impact, that might knock it down on the list. If we can figure out the depositional environment at Mawrth and it’s not just impact ejecta, that might bump it up in the ranking.

The bottom line coming out of this meeting is that there is still a lot we can learn about all of these sites. Some of it can only be learned by a rover, but some of it just requires a deeper look at the data we already have. MSL is a phenomenally powerful (and phenomenally expensive) machine, and we only get one. I hope this meeting gets people digging deeper to learn about these sites so that we send MSL to the best place possible, whatever that may be.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Who was the author of this excerpt?

 

[EarthlingX]

http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/ :

Ryan Anderson
About the Author

 

[3488]

Thanks EarthlingX.

I am still in favour of Mawrth Vallis. To me with the information to hand, Mawrth to me offers the greatest diversity of types & ages of terrain.

I must admit, I did wonder about Eberswalde, whether or nor it could have been a consequence of the impact that formed Holden Crater???

We'll see.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

There are new images of the proposed landing sites in the new HiRISE release.


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov : Mobile Mars Lab Almost Ready for Curiosity Rover

October 08, 2010


The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will analyze samples of material collected by the rover's arm. Image credit: NASA-GSFC

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite has completed assembly at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and is nearly ready for a December delivery to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where it will be installed into the Curiosity rover.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission will use SAM and other instruments on Curiosity to examine whether an intriguing area of Mars has had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and favorable for preserving evidence of life, if it existed. Launch is scheduled for late 2011, with landing in August 2012.

SAM will explore molecular and elemental chemistry relevant to life. It will analyze samples of Martian rock and soil to assess carbon chemistry through a search for organic compounds, and to look for clues about planetary change.

SAM is in flight configuration, meaning its instruments are in the condition they will be in during launch and are ready to begin operations on Mars. The instrument suite (a mass spectrometer, gas chromatograph and tunable laser spectrometer) started final environmental testing this week, which includes vibration and thermal testing to ensure SAM can survive the launch, deep space flight and conditions on Mars.

Full press release: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/sam-configure.html