Curiosity Has Landed!!

Originally posted by cd5love96
They (gov) obviously found something on Mars. What's the justification for sending another rover up to Mars when there's already two up there (one active). Supposedly, one of the rovers has a damaged wheel and is stuck and the other is still trucking it.

This is obviously for another purpose if it even landed on Mars. For all we know those pictures are from some barren desert here on Earth. You just never know nowadays.If they in fact landed on Mars one has to wonder their true agenda.

THEY cant win with people with your attitude, if they dont go their hiding something, if they do go they are hiding something

reply to post by Druid42


Wow, someone doing their own research instead of jumping to conclusions! Who woulda thunk

Well done mate

Originally posted by wmd_2008
reply to post by Druid42

 

Well done wasn't to hard was it, now will you think before you type!!!

I will if you learn to be a tad more polite. You can refer to Phage's manners for assistance.

reply to post by Kryties


The credit goes to Phage for the informative link. I just followed it.

However, it's much easier to understand the capabilities with specs provided.

That's one lean mean photographing machine!

Great! I can't wait to see some photoshoped images!

Originally posted by samlf3rd
Great! I can't wait to see some photoshoped images!

Like this one?



I swear to the Lords of the Universe it's not photoshopped

Any body catch the hideously pro american slip from Obama's Sceintific advisor after landing? He stated " The united states is the only country that has landed a probe or lander on another planet." Right, because Venera doesnt count. First images of surface of Venus just isnt good enough...

For #s sake, space is for people, not nations. We humans dont deserve to be going up and out yet if this is the #ty mentality we carry along with us.

"We are actually the only country that has landed surface landers on any other planet." - John Holdren

How did he get his job exactly?

reply to post by AaronWilson


I admit that did annoy me a little, particularly seeing as though it, in essence, is an international effort. For instance, I'm not hearing much mention of the fact that the Tidbinbilla Tracking Station down here in Australia is what was relaying the landing to JPL as well as they are performing a major role in tracking it's progress throughout the whole mission. They are preparing, as we speak, to upload software from Tidbinbilla to change the rover from space mode into planetary mode to begin setting up the instruments.

Anyways, just wanted to add that.

www.smh.com.au...

The executive director of the CSIRO, Megan Clark, watched the NASA live stream with the US ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, and the director of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, Ed Kruzins, at Tidbinbilla. She said she was extremely proud of the Australian team involved in communicating with Curiosity.

''You could see the nerves in the guys at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory], you could see the nerves in our guys. You wanted everything to go well but you also know that it is an incredibly audacious project,'' Dr Clark said.

''Now we start the next phase and we'll be part of a major science project to collect and transmit the data. This is really just the start of it.''

During the next few days, the Tidbinbilla tracking station will upload the software to Curiosity that tells it to change from spacecraft mode to rover mode so it can spend the next two years trying to analyse whether conditions have ever favoured life.

Read more: www.smh.com.au...

Well,...so much for that..................now comes the long boring wait for real pictures.......
Say three days to iron her out and get her up and sending?
Add to that any time waiting for windows to send data....
We should be seeing what they tell us is Mars in a few days tops.....
the real interesting panoramas are going to come later on when they try to 4x4 up mount sharp.....
We are looking at a tall mountain there.....taller than anything in the lower 48 states they says.
Gawd it will be interesting to see what colour the sky is......John Lear notwithstanding i hope it be blue not that redish brownish hazish sky we have always thought it would be.

Originally posted by stirling

We should be seeing what they tell us is Mars in a few days tops.....

I hear they resurrected Stanley Kubrick for the job. I also have 'insider' information telling me they made the 6km high Mt Sharp that MSL landed next to out of paper mâché. No word has been recieved yet on how they plan on replanting the worlds forests after they stripped them bare to accomplish this though.

True story bro.

Originally posted by Idonthaveabeard
This will probably sound noobish when it comes to cameras, but you will have to excuse my ignorance. I know its not all about Megapixels, but the main camera is 8 mega pixels while you can buy a 30 mega pixel camera from any consumer store. Plus gigapixel cameras have also been made now. Fair enough the gigapixel cameras are probably just to big to justify it, but surely they could manage more than 8?? Or is it just about photo size, it would take to long to send back to earth if the resolution was so high?

So you find this image unimpressive then:

120megs and resolution of 23,096px×7,981px. and yet this camera is inferior to the one opportunity has.
You don't need gigapixel cameras to take impressive pictures. 8MP is more than enough for this task. The average consumer camera does not even have optics that are good enough to actually take advantage of the MP they advertise.

Are these not he pictures then? What I dont get is how they get sent back - what method of transmission works in space ? Surely none till this fact be fronted , can anyone enlighten me about this ? Is it microwaves?

reply to post by Druid42

How many times does it have to be repeated that hazard cam is not made to for creating high res pictures. The purpose of it is the same as the name and that is exactly what it is used for.
And imagine trying to transfer a high res picture all the way to earth when bandwidth is rather low.
Putting a high res camera on there would be overkill. And with more pixels packed together on a small chip you also get more noise. There are plenty of drawbacks to high mpixel cameras.
And like I said in previous post.. Most cameras you buy in store wont even be able to use those pixels and it is most often just marketing. A lower MP camera with better optics can often result in better images.
And you can easily create super high res pictures by taking several photos and then stitching them together in post production.

And your cell phone would not even come close to a decent quality dslr camera with even 5MP or less. It is nothing but a scam to fool naive people like you into thinking more pixels equals better.

reply to post by ZIPMATT


yeah its telepathic m8

reply to post by ZIPMATT


A simple check of the NASA site gives a wealth of information on that subject:

marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov...

Telecommunications technologies serve as the "walkie-talkies" that enable spacecraft operators on Earth to send commands and receive data faster and in greater amounts. Below are examples of the way in which the Mars Science Laboratory mission benefits from past technological development.

Inherited Technologies

The Mars Science Laboratory Rover will be able to "talk" to Earth using any one of three antennas. During the mission, the rover's primary means of communication will be via UHF frequencies -- similar to those used for television broadcasts. During "conversations" scheduled twice each day, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, now in flight above Mars, will serve as intermediary and record the information for transmission to Earth. Each conversation will last about 15 minutes, the length of time it takes for the orbiter to pass from horizon to horizon. The orbiter will then relay the information to Earth.

In a pinch, NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, also in orbit above Mars, will serve as a backup for relaying information in the same manner. Odyssey has transmitted most of the data from NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers since they landed on the red planet in 2004. On occasion, the European Space Agency's Mars Express may also serve as intermediary.

The rover has two other antennas for communicating directly with Earth, similar to those used on the Viking landers in the 1970s, the Pathfinder mission in the 1990s, and the Mars Exploration Rovers. One is the Low-Gain Antenna, the other the High-Gain Antenna. Both are similar in appearance to satellite television dishes but transmit signals at much higher frequencies known as X-band frequencies. These higher frequencies can transmit more data in the same amount of time using smaller, shorter wavelengths, but the transmissions must be more narrowly focused to be received at the other end.

The Low-Gain Antenna, transmitting broader, less focused signals, will serve as the rover's primary link to Earth for the first several sols, or Martian days, after landing. These signals will spread out as they leave the antenna, so that no matter which way the antenna is pointed, the signal will reach the Earth. Once mission controllers have determined the rover's precise location and attitude -- that is, which way its various parts are oriented relative to the Sun and Earth -- they will switch communications to the High-Gain Antenna. The High-Gain Antenna sends a more efficient signal focused directly at Earth, to be detected, like all transmissions from Mars, by NASA's Deep Space Network of antennas.

Another way the Mars Science Laboratory rover can communicate is via the Electra experiment on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Electra has a very important role in helping determine the precise location of the rover as well as any other spacecraft on or above Mars.

A few of the full resolution images from the hazcams are available.
There's hills on Mars! Well, we knew that but this is the first image from the ground with one in it.


mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Phage


Lies! That's just the leftover paper mâché from Kubricks building of Mt Sharp!

reply to post by Kryties


maybe i am asking a silly question , but does uhf actually work in space though ? frequency refering to the vibration of molecules , which do now exist in space ? Is there enough dust up there because there isnt any air... which is where the vibration frequency is operative within the atmosphere , where there are molecules to transmit a signal through .

the sun would be a factor in the reliability of terrestrial broadcast from satellites , but in this piece the environmental variables are neatly skipped as regards the sun

it doesnt hurt to be a skeptic sometimes but that network of attennas has got to be pretty important to this whole shebang . Nasas network of anntennas indeed , lol , like a , network of antennas there , so it is
but it'll be nice to see the real pictures

reply to post by ZIPMATT

No. Radio (electromagnetic radiation) is not vibrating molecules. That's sound. Sound doesn't travel through space, radio waves do.

reply to post by ZIPMATT


UHF works via electromagnetic waves rather than transmission of pressure waves through a medium (sound) which is what you are describing.

EDIT: What Phage said