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Author Topic: Curiosity  (Read 28349 times)

Offline Ottawan

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Curiosity
« on: November 25, 2011, 09:48:11 PM »
Is anybody excited about this mission?
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Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest

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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2011, 11:14:03 PM »
I am! The rover is almost as big as my car... I'd love to be on Mars to watch it land.
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2011, 11:53:37 PM »
Launch at 1502 GMT or 1002 EST or 0702 PST.

I think it is great that another mission to Mars is being sent, even with the controversy over the budget.  The thing that surprises me most is that the media or the tree-huggers are not wigging out over the RTG!  With the RTG, this rover will go for years and hopefully surpass its predecessors.

SM
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Offline ijuin

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2011, 12:29:45 AM »
Thankfully, unlike Cassini, Curiosity will not be performing a close flyby of Earth--one of the environmentalists' complaints on Cassini was the fear that it might go off course and fall into Earth's atmosphere on the flyby.
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2011, 10:44:38 AM »
Great launch and it is off to Mars.

SM
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Offline Ottawan

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2011, 03:55:31 PM »
Watched the launch this morning, thanks to the streaming video from Spaceflightnow.com. It was very exciting! I found it peculiar how the solids departed. It seemed like they all flamed out at about the same time but left in a 1 count 2 count 3 count 4 count fashion. Still, thanks to the Atlas 5 and the launch crew for the start of a very ambitious mission. Good luck Curiosity!
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Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest

Dave Scott, Apollo 15

Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2011, 09:46:36 PM »
They had the guy from the D.o.E. talking about the RTG.  It will put out 2kw of heat, over 100 watts of electricity and will last 14 years.  Not bad at all. 
Funny thing I observed, we are using Russian Plutonium for the RTG and RD-180 engines for the Atlas.

SM
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Offline ijuin

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2011, 08:17:43 PM »
The other nice thing about using an RTG for Curiosity is that it will be able to operate through more of the winter than Spirit and Opportunity because the RTG's heat can be used to keep her systems warm as opposed to having to use electrically-powered heating elements.
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Offline Johno

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2011, 05:00:24 AM »
One of my students was at the Cape for this. 

Now, since you guys are mostly North Americans, you don't pick up the import of this -

Basically, this lucky kid is the first person I have ever met in my LIFE who has ever been on hand to watch a spacecraft fly!
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Offline Ottawan

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2011, 09:31:15 PM »
You should have chaperoned his trip lol!!!
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Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest

Dave Scott, Apollo 15

Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2012, 06:38:45 PM »
Here's a really cool video showing the "Entry/Descent/Landing" stage of the mission (aka. "the 7 minutes of terror").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I8AoB1xgU
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #11 on: August 05, 2012, 08:34:02 PM »
So who is watching the coverage of the landing on NASA TV tonight? It lands after 1am my time, but luckily I have the day off work tomorrow so staying up late won't be a problem for me.
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2012, 08:39:17 PM »
For a live interactive simulation of the MSL landing click the following link:

http://eyes.nasa.gov/launch2.html?document=$SERVERURL/content/documents/msl/edl.xml (requires Java)
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline LunarOrbit

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #13 on: August 06, 2012, 12:52:13 AM »
Curiosity is on Mars!

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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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Re: Curiosity
« Reply #14 on: August 06, 2012, 10:50:20 AM »
I am currently in Gibraltar and I heard the great news!  Way to go NASA!
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