Curiosity rover trajectory.

[Motokid600]

Im having a hard time finding information on the maneuvers the rover made when it arrived at Mars. Im looking to recreate the mission in KSP and Id like to emulate Curiosity's entry. The skucrane thing I know.. and is the reason im having so much trouble finding the info I want. How did Curiosity maneuver after separating the ejection stage? ( With the whole craft encapsulated ) Was an aerobrake/burn performed into Martian orbit or was it a direct entry?

[AngusJimiKeith]

Direct entry. I think all Martian landers have been, but don't quote me on that.

The craft was attached to a "cruise stage" which had solar panels, propulsion, etc. for the journey to Mars, and it separated from that just before entry. Then heatshield, chute, skycrane...

Here's a pretty big repository of info on Curiosity, including updates from launch up to now.

[Tommygun]

Will this help?

http://www.spaceflight101.com/msl-landing-special.html

[Motokid600]

Thanks so much everyone.

[spaceman1999]

Will you record a video of this recreation?

[Motokid600]

I'd like to get into making videos for KSP. If it turns out being video worthy. I think so.

[NovaSilisko]

Direct entry. I think all Martian landers have been, but don't quote me on that.

Viking 1 and 2 were put into orbit first as they were accompanied by orbiters. The Mars # landers from the USSR did the same as well I believe.

[AngusJimiKeith]

Right, they were sort of dual-purpose missions. I had forgotten about that.

[lajoswinkler]

Basically every unmanned mission so far used direct collision with the planet. Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Titan. Machines can withstand great deccelerations, unlike humans.

Try that with Dearly Reentry in KSP and things go boom.

[Motokid600]

Basically every unmanned mission so far used direct collision with the planet. Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Titan. Machines can withstand great deccelerations, unlike humans.

Try that with Dearly Reentry in KSP and things go boom.

Eh.. I'm using DRE, think I'll be alright with a direct landing on Duna? Al this work I don't want to loose the whole thing to gforces.

[lajoswinkler]

Eh.. I'm using DRE, think I'll be alright with a direct landing on Duna? Al this work I don't want to loose the whole thing to gforces.

If you're even considering strapping a Kerbal to it, Real Chute is a must or they die. Unmanned... pretty strongly advisable because you can configure it to deploy a lot sooner than stock chutes. I'm not sure how probe cores' resistance to decceleration is nowdays with all these updates.

I don't think burning up on Duna is an issue, but I'd use Procedural Parts reentry shield. They explode (at least on Eve) when their temperature climbs somewhere above 1550 °C, possibly 1600 and it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of ablative material.

They just pop.

Will that happen on Duna's direct collision, I have no bloody idea. Duna has a very thin atmosphere so I've always used grazing and then angled reentry to maximize the duration of braking. Something tells me you'll have mere seconds between end of fiery ablation and impact. The atmosphere might not be powerful enough to cause significant resistance and G-force. You basically slam into the ground.

Send a simple Venera-like probe for starters. Chute and shield.

[Motokid600]

Hm.. I see. Because I am going for as close a recreational as I can to Curiosity's entry and landing. The big thing on my mind is just as you said.. the time from atmosphere entry to ground. I'd rather not pop a chute before peak heating. Not sure how it'd stand up with DRE and Duna's thin atmosphere. It may hold up. Basically what I need to do is.. Parachute deploy asap, drop the heatshield ( I'm hoping the chute can slow the craft enough AND the thinner atmosphere is enough for the shield to actually fall away ) then the rover/crane drop out of the shell, fire engines, lower rover, disconnect and done.

Works great on Kerbin. But there's a whole lot of atmosphere on Kerbin that allows me to really take my time with the "six minutes of terror" phase. On Duna im going to have to work alot faster.

I see alot of quick loading in my future. Testing is tricky. Right now I'm just getting the process perfected. But without actually sending the rover there I figure a good test would be a very steep entry into Kerbins atmosphere to limit the time between atmosphere entry and landing. Just to get the feel of it.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Motokid600