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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

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Re: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

#111

Post by michaelcampbell »

mturmon wrote: post #34
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opportunity is not so far (it's actually inside a crater nearby I think), but it'd take months to get to place, and there may not be enough scientific value in doing so just to see the charred remains of Schiaparelli. But who knows, it's so over it's expected mission life that maybe someone goes "f * it, let's go take a look".

Opportunity tried to see the descent, but it did not work: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/1019152...

I love reading her stuff, even if I don't understand a lot of it. Her twitter feed is fantastic.

Re: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

#113

Post by sctb »

ythl wrote: post #23

High visibility European space missions seem to have catastrophic failures a lot

Given this account's admission of trolling and history of unsubstantive comments, we have to ask you to please stop. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762670 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

#114

Post by Too »

Stupid question maybe, but would it not make sense to launch multiple landers with one rocket? The hardware cost of a rover must be peanuts compared to the engineering cost, the launch cost and the time to travel? How big is the lander compared to the launch rocket?

Re: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

#115

Post by MrZongle2 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #104
MrZongle2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Schiaparelli used hydrazine for fuel, and if it smashed into the surface it seems to me that it's a reasonable assumption that the whole crash site is contaminated with it. Is that something we want to get all over the rover?

Hydrazine is extremely unstable right? Would much of it remain after slamming in to the ground?

With a bit more Googling, it appears that hydrazine's lifetime in (Earth) atmosphere is measured in hours. I'm not sure what that would be on Mars, or if soaking into the soil there would increase its lifetime.

It's a fun mental exercise, I guess -- I'd love to hear from somebody in the field who knew more about hydrazine -- but as the Opportunity rover is still a long (likely impossible) distance away from the crash site, it will likely just remain a mental exercise.

Re: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site

#116

Post by MrZongle2 »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #92
MrZongle2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Schiaparelli used hydrazine for fuel, and if it smashed into the surface it seems to me that it's a reasonable assumption that the whole crash site is contaminated with it. Is that something we want to get all over the rover?

Both are good answers... let's see what scientists decide. In te meantime, MRO should give some interesting hi-res pictures.

Yes! I wasn't aware that a second fly-over with a better imager was going to happen, but now I'm morbidly curious.
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