After more than eight months of space travel, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the $2.5 billion, 2,000-pound Curiosity rover is nearly ready to touch down on the red planet. Hundreds of CAE man-hours helped simulate, optimize, and validate the mission in the digital world, but the moment of truth for the rover and spacecraft design will be the final landing, which is slated for 10:31 p.m. PT on Sunday, Aug. 5.
The Curiosity, with its six vehicle configurations, 76 pyrotechnic devices, and 500,000 lines of software code (among other innovations), has been called the most sophisticated rover ever sent to Mars by its maker, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). A critical component of the rover's ongoing development has been a partnership between Siemens PLM Software and the JPL. Siemens' Teamcenter PLM software and its NX CAD and NX CAE tools were used to design and simulate the rover digitally before any physical prototypes were built and to ensure all components would fit together, operate properly, and withstand their environment.
Siemens PLM Software's CAD, CAE, and PLM tools played a pivotal role in the design of the Curiosity rover, which is slated to touch down on Mars at 10:31 p.m. PT on Sunday, Aug. 5. (Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
"NASA's JPL has employed the latest in software technology to design the Mars rover to withstand the impossible extremes of launch, space travel, atmospheric reentry, and landing a 2,000-pound operational vehicle on the surface of Mars," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a press release and at a press conference at the recent Farnborough Air Show.
One of the biggest design challenges in the Curiosity mission was the Mars landing -- a feat NASA is billing as "Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror." It will take seven minutes for the rover to travel from the top of the atmosphere down to the surface of Mars, but it takes 14 minutes for a signal from the spacecraft to reach mission control, so there will be a period when the ground crew will be completely in the dark about its status.
This is a very complicated and strange landing sequence. It is, of course, dictated by the environment and size of the craft, but it is still fantastic. The only way to plan this out is simulation. That in itself is a big process. The delay in communications caused by the great distances in space has always made commanding interplanetary craft complex. You don't command it like a RPV. In effect, you send up a program that handles the maneuver, and hope it works. Here's hoping this one works on Mars.
There will no doubt be a ton of nail biting over this landing. It is so complex and in some ways, appears so convoluted, but I suppose that is what's necessary for this particular exploration. The whole notion that they are dark for seven minutes before knowing if the mission was a success or not is pretty mind boggling.
This is gong to be fun to watch, once the rover is safely down. This lading sounds quite a bit different from the rover landing in the late 1990s, when the rover was enclosed in a big ball that bounced on the surface and then opened once it came to a rest.
Wow, Beth – thanks for that article. What a difficult scenario to resolve! Two lines sum it up:
,,,,, seven minutes to travel from atmosphere to surface, but 14 minutes for a signal ,,,,,
,,,,,, By the time we get a signal back, it will have either crashed or successfully landed ,,,,,
Talk about the Kobayashi Maru!! Accordingly, the entire sequence has to perform autonomously, perfectly, and without any correctional interventions. What a fantastic challenge; I'll be watching Space.Com and other sites on August 5th for news on this!
Beth Stackpole: It does seem like a lot of things must go right. The most confusing thing to me(I understand why) is the crane. I just can't wait to see it on tv. Wish they had the swamp people camera crew there to film it, that'd be awesome!...lol
Not to go off subject, but if any cameramen are out there that knows how those swamp guys get those shots I would sure like to know. I can figure out most of them, but some just leave me thinking...how the heck did they do that?! It might be a strange show, but unbelievable camera work.
The crane is what they came up with to lower the rover on to the surface after vastly decelerating it with rockets. Apparently, if the rockets get too close to the surface, they kick up a dust storm that would ruin the equipment and rover itself, so they required a more streamlined and less intrusive way to lower the rover to Mars surface.
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A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
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