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Mars Curiosity's first images

mars.jpl.nasa.gov

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Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#31

Post by zerohp »

haeikou wrote: post #11

I had the impression that the whole "control" room was nothing but show. Estimating the travelling times of a radio wave, nobody on earth could have had any control about the spacecraft, and none of the engineers in the control room could have done anything other than watch. So if anybody is more involved into the mission than I am ... is my impression correct, or were there actual fallback mechanisms that these peop…

They made it very clear in the press conferences earlier in the day that they have no more control during EDL than the viewer watching it at home.

I don't think the control room was "nothing but show." They certainly could have all gone home, but given the time and energy invested in this mission over the last decade, It was importent to monitor the event as it happened even if it cannot be controlled.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#32

Post by hartror »

damncabbage wrote: post #25
artursapek wrote: post #5

From a screen recording I took: http://i.imgur.com/C5Y6P.jpg I actually shed a tear. That was beautiful. Edit: Raw images being put on Twitter by NASA: http://p.twimg.com/Azl6LRUCMAAU1GK.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl9hyXCEAE5_Hw.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl7LXOCUAAJT5z.jpg:large

Is that... a Tcl/Tk app being run in GNOME?

That was my thought as well as I was watching the coverage. Not surprising given there are a lot of old school engineers at NASA/JPL.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#34

Post by joering2 »

marvin wrote: post #30
joering2 wrote: post #13

I took those during landing sequence.. http://i45.tinypic.com/353eemc.jpg http://i46.tinypic.com/ej95s5.png http://i49.tinypic.com/2qicoqq.png http://i50.tinypic.com/2hd8j13.png edit: its just fun to watch those. also, according to NASA there is 500,000 lines of code behind those 38 steps.. would love to see some parts of it!

That's really cool. Would love it if they had some video, or alternatively made a visualization of the entire landing sequence using received data. Like for instance a video of the telemetry you took screenshots of.

yes. or at least upload full video-stream of those screenshots. hope to see this on yt soon!

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#35

Post by joshwa »

joering2 wrote: post #13

I took those during landing sequence.. http://i45.tinypic.com/353eemc.jpg http://i46.tinypic.com/ej95s5.png http://i49.tinypic.com/2qicoqq.png http://i50.tinypic.com/2hd8j13.png edit: its just fun to watch those. also, according to NASA there is 500,000 lines of code behind those 38 steps.. would love to see some parts of it!

That is the first time I've seen a real-life useful computer display actually look like something they dream up in the movies.

(counterexamples welcome!)

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#36

Post by mbell »

damncabbage wrote: post #25
artursapek wrote: post #5

From a screen recording I took: http://i.imgur.com/C5Y6P.jpg I actually shed a tear. That was beautiful. Edit: Raw images being put on Twitter by NASA: http://p.twimg.com/Azl6LRUCMAAU1GK.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl9hyXCEAE5_Hw.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl7LXOCUAAJT5z.jpg:large

Is that... a Tcl/Tk app being run in GNOME?

Pretty sure the GUI toolkit is Motif, window borders do look like gnome though.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#38

Post by gojomo »

haeikou wrote: post #11

I had the impression that the whole "control" room was nothing but show. Estimating the travelling times of a radio wave, nobody on earth could have had any control about the spacecraft, and none of the engineers in the control room could have done anything other than watch. So if anybody is more involved into the mission than I am ... is my impression correct, or were there actual fallback mechanisms that these peop…

For the landing process, they were watching it unfold automatically and irreversibly on the 14-minute relativistic delay, just like us.

But I don't think that means their assembly there was "just for show". That's the best place to see every detail of how well things matched plans: to see discrepancies, in context and with collaborating peers, as soon as possible.

And now that it's down, there could be info that requires adaptive action. Even though interpreting such new data, devising a plan, and sending instructions would take hours or days, it's still a "control" function, just a slow and deliberate one.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#39

Post by raverbashing »

damncabbage wrote: post #25
artursapek wrote: post #5

From a screen recording I took: http://i.imgur.com/C5Y6P.jpg I actually shed a tear. That was beautiful. Edit: Raw images being put on Twitter by NASA: http://p.twimg.com/Azl6LRUCMAAU1GK.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl9hyXCEAE5_Hw.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl7LXOCUAAJT5z.jpg:large

Is that... a Tcl/Tk app being run in GNOME?

Maybe the legendary Xv they used on Sojourney?

(by the photo looks like something like it, stil...)

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