Frida Space

That's a good question, how to get rid of dust on solar panels. A fan is a possible theory, I wonder if someone can come up with other interesting ideas. By the way, here is a great comparison: - - - Updated - - - Yes, it's having problem with one of its seven flash memory banks, and it often suffers amnesia events (the engineers upload comands, the software reboots itself and the rover forgets everything while trying to understand what happened). A few days ago NASA uploaded a new software which doesn't rely on the memory bank #7, which should be the bugged out one, however until a reboot the situation won't change.

That's not my question. My question is if (and if yes, what) did the scientists/engineers back then think would have caused the rovers to die so soon (if not in 90 days, in a year or so presumably, definitely not in 6-7 years like Spirit or 11 and counting for Opportunity). From what people have written so far, it appears that NASA could have overstimated the surface hazards (or that it did an excellent job in avoiding them once on the surface, unlike it seems to be doing with Curiosity) and that it could have underestimated the effects of winds "cleaning" the solar panels. Sure, margins and construction have definitely played a major role in allowing the rovers to live so long, but I don't think it's just those two things.

Thanks for the link. So I'm guessing they overstimated the wheel-damage risk for Opportunity and understimated it for Curiosity? Curiosity's wheels do look much more fragile (that's probably because they wanted to make them as light as possible, but now it's a big problem for the rover. I remember sometime last year they had to change the rover's path plan to avoid further damage). That makes sense, but the question still stands. If they built Opportunity and Spirit a bit tougher, then why did they think they wouldn't last long? From what others have posted here, it appears they probably didn't think that the martian wind would blow off dust from the panels so often. Thanks everyone! The Science Labs are an awesome place.

Hi everyone. Today I have a question that might be stupid, but, even if I've been following space exploration everyday for a couple of years now, I had never thought of. In fact, I didn't come up with it, a friend of mine did. So, the question is why is the Opportunity rover lasting so long on Mars? Sure, a lot of space probes have exceeded their warranty dates. However, rovers are very different. The wheel system, for example, was designed to last only 90 days, and now, 3953 Sols later, it's apparently doing better than Curiosity's wheels. My question is why? Did the engineers back then think that the martian surface was much more hazardous than it actually turned out to be? However, my question doesn't refer just to the wheels, but to the entire rover itself. I'm not even sure whether or not there's a precise answer(s), but either way thank you to anyone that will reply.

On Tuesday morning (in the US I guess) New Horizons will cross 1 AU to Pluto, and will fire its engine for a 96 sec burn, the 1st Pluto homing maneuver.

Yes, I know that. What I wanted to say is that that's not the reason as to why Dawn won't be snapping pictures until April. The reason is it will be flying over the night side of Ceres.

Actually I think that the reason we won't be getting images until April is because Dawn will fly over the night side of Ceres, not because it will move further away.

Ceres is a lie

http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2015/03/20150303_hayabusa2.html Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) As of 2: 00 p.m. on March 3, 2015 (JST) Distance from Sun 162,450,000 km Distance from Earth 35,900,000 km Navigation speed 27.36 km/s The Asteroid Explorer "Hayabusa2" completed its initial functional confirmation period on March 2, 2015, as all scheduled checkout and evaluation of acquired data were completed. The explorer has been under inspection for about three months after its launch on Dec. 3, 2014. The Hayabusa2 is moving to the cruising phase while heading to the asteroid "1999 JU3" on March 3. It will be under preparatory operation for an Earth swing-by scheduled in Nov. or Dec., 2015. We plan to increase the cruising speed of the explorer (60 m/sec.) by operating two ion engines twice (in total about 600 hours or 25 days) until the Earth swing-by. For the first operation, we will gradually increase the time duration of continuous ion-engine operation from March 3, and will operate the engines for about 400 hours within March. The second operation is scheduled in early June. *Please refer to the attached mission schedule. The Hayabusa2 is in good health

CAPTURE CONFIRMED!

Actually, the main problem is the cold, not the heat. Most of Philae's vital instruments will die below -210 (plus/minus 15) Kelvin. Surface temperatures can drop as low as 180 Kelvin, but in certain areas they reach 230 Kelvin. It all depends on how cold Philae's landing site is.

This is the latest data they have, as far as I know they had to decide between Rosetta's science and Philae and for the moment they have chosen to focus on the first. I was at a conference of Philae's drill's P.I. last week.

Definitely a lot of features to study I'm particularly intrigued by the big crater in the lower hemisphere in the first image. It looks pretty old and eroded, but it has a perfectly circular crater in its exact center which looks a lot younger.

You can't compare two measurements which have different units. It's like saying, 10 J is an order of magnitude greater than 1 meter. Doesn't really mean anything.

That's exactly what I was thinking, I pretty much learned the basic orbital dynamics thanks to KSP. However, it would be cool to study the real maths and physics behind them explained by the first man to log 1000 hours on a space shuttle! I'll definitely be following the course if I find the time.

Not a lot of difference? That's a HUGE difference! Albedo goes from 0 to 1. Earth's albedo is 0.306. Never saw Ceres that way. That's cool

Thanks, great explanation! That was what I was looking for.

Sure, that's pretty straightforward. What I was wondering is which more important, the albedo or the distance from the Sun.

I don't think the distance to the Sun has a lot to do with lighting, I think (but I could be wrong) that it has more to do with the albedo, and Ceres has a really low albedo (less than a third that of Earth)

Thanks for sharing! I'll definitely be looking into it.

For me, Laythe is probably the easiest moon to land on. Just stick a couple of parachutes, be careful to hit land and it's done, I rarely have to use a powered descent. For me, the hardest ones have to be Tylo (because of high gravity and no atmosphere, as a lot here already said) and Moho, just because it's a serious pain to reach. No matter how precisely I time my transfer orbit, I never get an encounter on the first try.

If you mean growing plants in dedicated habitats (with Earth-like temperature, air, pressure etc.) on the surfaces of other planets, then that's going to be fascinating. That's what the Lunar Plant Growth Habitat will try to find out in the next years. NASA will go on the Moon to grow Arabidopsis seeds for 10 days (enough to see germination and initial growth), monitoring them with a GoPro. Most scientists think that the lunar conditions (gravity and space radiation) should be favorable for plant growth, but we'll have to find out.

True, I overlooked that. However, I still think Pluto will be somwehat "cooler": it has moons, maybe some undiscovered ones too and it could even have rings. The simple fact that it has a moon as big as Charon has so many consequences (gas transfer, dust exchange, transient atmosphere etc.) which will be fascinating to study. That said, Ceres is really cool too, can't wait for Dawn to begin its orbital mission.