BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

Discovery News
Analysis by Jason Major
Fri Oct 7, 2011 03:35 AM ET
By the way this one is nuclear powered so it won't suffer from that annoying dust on the solar panels problem. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts though.

With its launch window opening in less than two months, the Mars Science Laboratory was matched up with its heat shield at Kennedy Space Center's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
The completed MSL rover, a.k.a. "Curiosity," had already been fitted onto the "back shell powered descent vehicle" -- a revolutionary landing mechanism that will first deploy parachutes to slow the capsule's descent and then use rockets to hover above the Martian surface as it carefully lowers the one-ton rover down on cables before finally launching itself away to fall at a safe distance.

Read more here.
http://news.discovery.com/space/curiosi ... 11007.html

[Shadowwolf]

I do wonder if this is the best method of deployment as there is so much that could go wrong and ruin the entire thing.

Could they not land the thing on those hover rockets and deploy the vehicle via a ramp? Cables and winching mechs that all must operate in almost perfect unison at speed then all unhook before jetting away? Sounds cool but I fear it won't quite all work right.

[M Paul Lloyd]

It does seem overly complicated but it has been rigorously tested and apparently it works really well, although despite some very nice animated footage of how it is supposed to work I have been unable to find anything related to the actual testing.
I had hoped to see at least something being dropped from a helicopter onto a bit of desert or such like.
Let us hope they know what they are doing otherwise it could all prove very disappointing.

[Jamie]

Allow me:

http://www.universetoday.com/82679/vide ... ng-system/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDZY6_HpdqE

Think I got my name on the chip that's on the back of it too. Win!

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well found Jamie, although I would have found it rather more convincing if the rocket motors were running and it took place in a less sterile environment.

Fingers crossed.

[Jamie]

Yeah, though I doubt they'd spend a billion dollars without having at least tested it someway. I will hunt for more footage.

[Jamie]

Mind you, I believe at least half of all missions to Mars have failed!

[Jamie]

Just been reading another article, which reckons that the MSL is just on the limit for the air-bag approach.

http://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-m ... ed-planet/

It's actually quite interesting when it talks about the challenge or delivering larger payloads (like the ones required for a manned mission).

[M Paul Lloyd]

Yes Mars suffers from numerous problems when it comes to making landfall, a lack of a decent atmosphere doesn't help with what little there is being insufficient to give adequate aerobraking to slow an object down but still requires some form of heatshield for protection against surface friction heating. Even though the given gravity is only about a third of what it is here it still imparts a significant acceleration to any ship/probe trying to land on it.
Its the worst of all worlds in many respects.
You could not, for example safely land on Mars using an aerodynamic Space Shuttle design or indeed the classic conical capsule without some form of additional retro braking. Something more akin to a beefed up Lunar landers would be needed really.