31–40 of 152 posts
Either way, this is seriously the coolest video I think I've ever seen. I cannot wait for more.
In case the other thread doesn't make the front page, they also added a microphone to this lander and managed to capture the sound of Mar's wind, which to me is almost more amazing: https://soundcloud.com/nasa/first-sounds-from-mars-filters-o...
Now, take three robots. One is wheeled, one flies by rotors, and another is rocket powered. Put them on a rocket, fly to another planet, and land them autonomously without wrecking anything. As a hobbyist I'd be beyond myself to just do ONE of those. On Earth. Let alone millions of miles away on a distant planet.
And to get video of it just days later, bounced across multiple orbiters? Mind blowing.
As incredible as this footage is, it's even more mindblowing to realize we've been doing this for 50 years now. We know how to land on mars. Time to do it with people.
One of the engineers said that the parachute's patterns was both for visually determining the orientation (with computer vision), but also hinted there was some secret message in it. (at 19:34 in the livestream)
I was really surprised at how fast the heat shield dropped away, and slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see it hit the ground.
I was hoping for the same, but at 9.5km away, and with a decelerating speed of 150m/s we wouldn't see but only a pixel. I wonder if they have the time/it's in their plan to send the bot over to record where it landed, the state that it's in, etc. If they want to simulate assess the damage, it would be cheaper to make heat shield 50 of them on Earth and drop them from 10-15km. I assume that every minute is gold and th…
I was thinking the same, but more for the fact that surely the impact has made a hole of some description that could be interesting to look into. Take advantage of the already expended energy to penetrate the surface layers.
I was really surprised at how fast the heat shield dropped away, and slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see it hit the ground.
HiRise captured the whole shebang: An image with the lander, heat shield, descent stage, and parachute. The descender is always a big black smear after these things, which is quite sad. I'm looking for the link, but the NASA TV feed had it.
Edit: no video I can find; I'd just find satisfying to watch it hit the ground, in real time.
In case the other thread doesn't make the front page, they also added a microphone to this lander and managed to capture the sound of Mar's wind, which to me is almost more amazing: https://soundcloud.com/nasa/first-sounds-from-mars-filters-o...
As incredible as this footage is, it's even more mindblowing to realize we've been doing this for 50 years now. We know how to land on mars. Time to do it with people.