Thread

Spirit has landed on Mars!

MacNN Hardware 38 posts Jan 3, 2004 to Jan 5, 2004

#1 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:37 MacNN

Updates here:

http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html

Just refresh the page.

Dunno if it survived yet.

#2 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:40 MacNN

This is nerve-wracking. I can't take it. They had indications that it was bouncing on the surface, but now it's gone silent.

#3 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:45 MacNN

I hope this one actually makes it.

If it doesn't, I'll be convinced that the martians don't want us spying on their tea parties.

#4 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:50 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
I hope this one actually makes it.

So do I.

But I'm starting to freak out. It's been 10 minutes and they still haven't heard anything.

They had a perfect atmospheric entry, but lost the signal after Spirit started its bouncing on the Martian surface.

#5 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:53 MacNN

It's transmitting...

#6 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:53 MacNN

SPIRIT IS ALIVE ON MARS! A "very strong signal" is now being received from the Spirit rover from the Gusev Crater on the surface of the Red Planet!

#7 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:53 MacNN

Quote:

SPIRIT IS ALIVE ON MARS! A "very strong signal" is now being received from the Spirit rover from the Gusev Crater on the surface of the Red Planet!

w00t!!!!!

#8 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:54 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
It's transmitting...

Woo hoo! Spirit lives!

#9 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:54 MacNN

Hot Damn! She made it!

#10 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:55 MacNN

Quote:

0453 GMT (11:53 p.m. EST)
The Mission Control room is a wild place at the moment with handshakes, screams and some very happy tears.

Not to get sappy, but that's awesome.

#11 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 22:56 MacNN

This is a happy day... NASA knows the difference between Pounds and Newtons after all!!!

This really is good news though. Congrats, NASA!

#12 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 23:06 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by Chris Grande:
Hot Damn! She made it!

Entry, Descent, and Landing Diagram

#13 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 23:10 MacNN

The Spirit is powered by the PowerPC chip. Cool.

Quote:

The computer in each Mars Exploration Rover runs with a 32-bit Rad 6000 microprocessor, a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC chip used in some models of Macintosh computers, operating at a speed of 20 million instructions per second. Onboard memory includes 128 megabytes of random access memory, augmented by 256 megabytes of flash memory and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory, which allows the system to retain data even without power.

#14 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 23:11 MacNN

press conference at 12:30 am EST...

#15 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 23:13 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by Spliff:
Entry, Descent, and Landing Diagram

I don' get it.. the airbags deployed after the first bounce?

Wow, we've been doign it wrong all along. I can't wait until GM releases cars with airbags that deploy AFTER the first head-to-wheel impact.. haha.

edit: oops, never mind.. airbags retracted. was looking at the diagram/pictures instead. i'm an idiot. haha.

#16 Sat, 3 Jan 2004 - 23:30 MacNN

NASA TV live feeds (requires RealPlayer):

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/nasatv.htm

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html

#17 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 00:24 MacNN

woo hoo!

any news on the beagle2?

#18 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 00:27 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by ironknee:
woo hoo!

any news on the beagle2?

They have another chance to hear from it on Sunday, January 4th. If they don't hear from it then, chances are it's DOA.

Which will really be too bad.

#19 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 00:28 MacNN

Quote:

0612 GMT (1:12 a.m. EST)

"When you walk outside today, if it is clear, you can see Mars. Just think, we just landed a rover on that planet. That is very sobering," JPL director Charles Elachi says.

#20 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 02:58 MacNN

pretty cool ****

#21 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 03:42 MacNN

Wow, that's really neat.

#22 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 04:01 MacNN

Yay!

I wonder how much longer till people actually go? :|

#23 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 10:25 MacNN

This is awesome news..with so many failures in the past 10 years, it's great that NASA finally has a win on their hands...

#24 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 11:14 MacNN

Most excellent news for NASA.

And here's to the hope I have UK brings Beagle 2 back to life. Good luck, team.

#25 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 11:28 MacNN

pretty freaking sweet!

#26 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 11:38 MacNN

Sounds awesome, too bad for Beagle. I hope a miracle opens up for them. The data collected from 2 probes would be better than 1.

It's beyond me why America doesn't do this more often, rather than wasting money on stupid wars.

Congrats to NASA.

#27 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 12:29 MacNN

What a great day for NASA/JPL!

It was exciting to follow the whole landing procedure and to see the first B&W images. Color images are due soon. I wonder if Mar's sky will be blue (like Viking's images)

The panoramic from Spirit was breathtaking - the setting sun and all that.

#28 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 12:54 MacNN

Great news! But I don't believe Beagle2 has made it. Imagine, maybe in some decades man search for Beagle2 and find it somewhere hidden under dust, and those of us who are still alive then will finally know what had happened.

After all, I'm looking foreward to interesing scientific research!

#29 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 14:11 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by Aiglos:
Sounds awesome, too bad for Beagle. I hope a miracle opens up for them. The data collected from 2 probes would be better than 1.

It's beyond me why America doesn't do this more often, rather than wasting money on stupid wars.

Congrats to NASA.

Maybe they don't have to launch as often because of all of the data they get from the Canadian Space program.

#30 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 14:14 MacNN

Congratulations to NASA on the successful mission with Spirit. May they continue in safety

#31 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 14:15 MacNN

I have the JPL "NASA TV" Real feed open now, and is that a Sound stick that the Mission Manager Has on the top part of his desk? Near the blue "Mission Manager" Sign

#32 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 14:40 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by ironknee:
woo hoo!

any news on the beagle2?

The last I heard they figured out it went in too fast. The Telegraph had a cute line:

Quote:

In space, they say, no one can hear you scream, but 60 million miles from Earth, somewhere over the crater-pocked Isidis basin, you might have heard a faint Kerrrunch!!

Link

#33 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 15:34 MacNN

Quote:

What I don't get is why these missions have such a short life span? Can anyone answer that?

I heard on the news this is only supposed to last 3 months. That seems awfully short. Couldn't they have built a sturdier vehicle? It's powered by solar so why can't it just roam indefinitely?

Same questions I've always had for the Hubble. Why can't it just stay up there indefinitely?

#34 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 15:49 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by vmpaul:

Same questions I've always had for the Hubble. Why can't it just stay up there indefinitely?

Where'd you hear that it was coming down any time soon?

Someone would probably need to do some orbital corrections every now and then (don't know if it has any means of thrusting itself around), but otherwise it should be able to stay up there for quite some time, at least until solar radiation fries some vital peice of silicon.

#35 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 15:53 MacNN

Quote:

Originally posted by Oneota:
Where'd you hear that it was coming down any time soon?

Someone would probably need to do some orbital corrections every now and then (don't know if it has any means of thrusting itself around), but otherwise it should be able to stay up there for quite some time, at least until solar radiation fries some vital peice of silicon.

I'm pretty sure I heard it was scheduled to come down. I'm not sure when but it's not far off (3-5 years?). It was on a program that was discussing the next large telescope going up. I forgot the name.

Anyway, there's a bit of discussion because some want to allocate enough resources to keep Hubble active till the new one is in orbit but NASA (or whoever is in charge) wants to go whole hog with the new because of the advancement it will bring. Sorry I don't have more info.

#36 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 16:48 MacNN

In terms of the longevity of HUbble, it migt be that the internal systems are geting old in their age. I don't think it was meant to be up their indefinitely anyways.

But yah, it's too bad that they couldn't gather data for as long as they could. But I'm pretty sure there's a good reason for it.

I'm surprised why they don't visit the moon, it's not too far off and it would be good to have some high res photos of the lunar surface.

#37 Sun, 4 Jan 2004 - 18:22 MacNN

I have two beagles and if Beagle 2 is alive and resembles a real beagle in any way I can guarantee this: if there is anything edible on Mars, the Beagle will find it!

#38 Mon, 5 Jan 2004 - 10:54 MacNN

The Hubble has a limited life span in space because of radiation, space debris, thermal shock, etc. Think of it as a car that gets driven in the rain, snow, sun, hot, cold, etc. It wears out. Components fail like an iBook logic board!

The hubble can't exactly go get an oil change anywhere. Or for that matter, have a hard drive or CPU replaced.

Hubble has far exceeded its original intended lifespan. It spent 10 years on the ground unintentionally aging, shortening its useful lifespan. And the mirror problem? Luckily, that was fixable and fixed.

I'd like to know what happened to the first Mars rover. Is it dead? Can it still take pictures or move?

Tune in to Tuesday's Nova on PBS (check local listings) for more info on Spirit. It is supposed to have updates on the latest pictures, etc. from the high-res camera.