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.
You are correct that American universities are still top notch, and they still attract the most talented students from here and abroad. That, however, was not the assertion in your comment. Also, I did not mean to impugn your honesty. I regret any suggestion that could be read that wa, especially now that you have clarified your position so well. I intended only to challenge those who, through blind nationalism, continue to insist that the US is "the best in the world" on every count. Here, too, some of the tortoises have overtaken the over-conficent hare.
I certainly agree with you that our country should put much more of its public resources into education and research, both pure and applied. We can regain our former leadership, but in order to do so we have to recognize the areas in which we have fallen behind. BTW, I am also about your age--69.
J-Allen, I'm going to overlook the fact that I have been called less-than-honest. If you evaluate our top engineering schools, and I do that on a regular basis, you will find that we do rank equivalent to those top schools in other parts of the world. NOW, I will admit, the caliber of student we send to those schools is dropping year by year. This is THE reason my wife and I have sent our three boys to private schools. The public educational system in this country is horrible, at best, and our so-called public servents don't really seem to worry that much about it. We are creating a class structure in this country which does worry me. I have a public education all the way--K through graduate school but then again, I'm 70. Things change. I read on a continuing basis the back-and-forth with our school boards, unions, teachers, etc and it is truly regreatable. I feel the answer is let's once again put the students first and the politicians last --- or at least close to last. Just a thought.
At one time we did have the best schools, the best innovation, etc. Many of the senior scientists and engineers on this project were products of that period. Unfortulantly, according to every objective study, competitive exam, and evaluation, the US can no longer make such boasts. Our students lag behind even some formerly "backward" countries in math and science. The number of college grads per-capita, especially in science and engineering, has also fallen behind much of the world.
People who continue to make such jingoistic claims based on long-faded laurels demonstrate that we lag behind the rest of the world in honesty as well.
I had forgotten we are this close to the landing. I think your great article is a "shining" example of how our country leads the world relative to engineering talent. We have the best schools, the best teachers and great opportunities to demonstrate engineering talent and resourcefulness. My great disapointment is our abdication of the manned programs and the loss of talent that will surely follow. Let's hope this landing is a total success.
Doesn't Mars frequently have huge dust storms? Why would they design a craft that is sensitive to dust, that's like sending a probe to Earth that's sensitive to water.
This isn't such a far-fetched idea. It is VERY similar to the escape gantry used on all pre-shuttle manned space flights. The emergency system was designed to take a post-launch capsule to a sufficient altitude that the main parachute would function safely. This new system simply works in reverse sequence. NASA simply replaced the heavy, bulky metal superstructure with cables. So long as there are no tangles.....
Altitude is determined with a device similar to a laser range finder. At the appropriate altitude, the steps in the deployment/disengagement sequence are initiated.
Here's a great link for the Curiosity Rover. You can play a video of a simulated landing. Plus, when the rover is ready to land, you can get a live visual.
I gather that they never actually tested a prototype of the 'crane' concept on Earth! That shows an incredible confidence in software!
I presume the fact that there are 8 rockets (2 in each corner?) indicates that there is redundancy in each corner, so only 4 actually need to work. It is going to have to fire the backup really fast if one of the mains fails...
Actually, from watching the press conference last night, a bigger reason for the sky crane vs. a legged-lander (like Phoenix and Viking) is a legged lander would have to land on perfectly flat land, and perfectly upright, or it would most likely topple over. As a retrorocket approaches the ground - given the lack of air pressure and the unevenness of the ground, back-pressure from the rocket exhaust could spike unpredictably.
These two reasons make a legged-lander far less desirable than the sky crane.
The drop-bounce-roll landing (MER, MPF) is also unfeasible as we don't have any cloth - for airbags - that could withstand the impact of a metric ton hitting the ground.
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