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Mars Exploration 1: Unmanned Missions (Probes; Rovers; etc.)

Souleater said:
I wonder why they didnt make the wheels out of titanium, although heavier pound for pound, its inherent strength means they could make the wheels with less material and titanium is much more durable
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Titanium is really strong and light, but it's really hard and brittle. There isn't much spring in it. They've also used titanium springs, which are doomed to failure.

The rover's wheels are made from aluminium, which is a soft metal. The thickness of the sheet they've used is not very thick, so of course it broke easily. A thickness of less than 1 mm is just not enough.

Properly-tempered steel would be better, although heavier. Heck, even marine-grade phosphor bronze would be better.
 
Much sharper rocks on Mars for the rover to deal with due to lack of erosion?

It's also possible the wheels are designed for the expected mission life, and the weight savings from having minimal travellable distance for the wheels means more science payload can be squeezed in elsewhere?
 
kamalktk said:
Much sharper rocks on Mars for the rover to deal with due to lack of erosion?

It's also possible the wheels are designed for the expected mission life, and the weight savings from having minimal travellable distance for the wheels means more science payload can be squeezed in elsewhere?
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Yes to sharper rocks, so soft aluminium wears fast.
Yes, weight was the primary factor determining the materials they used, I think.
 
hunck said:
Clearly they need you on the team. Get your application off to them..
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Application on its way! :chuckle:
I'm just an armchair engineer, I know. But when I see so many things done badly by NASA, I think that they really do need to find some better engineers. A recent fail I heard of was the drilling device, which failed to penetrate to its maximum depth.
Stuff they did back in the 60s and 70s was so much more awesome.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Application on its way! :chuckle:
I'm just an armchair engineer, I know. But when I see so many things done badly by NASA, I think that they really do need to find some better engineers. A recent fail I heard of was the drilling device, which failed to penetrate to its maximum depth.
Stuff they did back in the 60s and 70s was so much more awesome.
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Good luck! I dunno - I find it pretty awesome landing a rover + helicopter successfully on Mars. Couldn't do that in the 60s or 70s.
 
hunck said:
Good luck! I dunno - I find it pretty awesome landing a rover + helicopter successfully on Mars. Couldn't do that in the 60s or 70s.
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Yes, that is some pretty amazing engineering, I agree. But they are let down by other things that seem much simpler.
I think their best engineers/rocket scientists are put onto the landing tech and the other stuff is left to people with less ability.
Just a guess.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I think their best engineers/rocket scientists are put onto the landing tech and the other stuff is left to people with less ability.
Just a guess.
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I can see why that conclusion might be considered, but I don't believe it's accurate.

A huge amount of NASA's hardware engineering effort is actually performed by award to contractor teams (often defence-sector companies such as Lockheed-Martin or Grumman/ General Dynamics etc).

Half a century ago, a lot of the classic North American 'civil alphabet' companies seemed to be a lot more involved in sub-contracted work for NASA, such as ITT, IBM, AT&T, HP, as well as Texas Instruments & Gore. For reasons I don't know (but would like to understand) these commercial/non-defense organisations just don't *seem* to get much of a mention in the support of NASA activities nowadays (perhaps because their own stars have dimmed somewhat as well).

Also: although "the O-ring effect", of NASA's professed corporate rejection of risk and gung-ho as an intrinsic value and foundation must have made its own improvements, I would expect that NASA's project management and QA systems should already be second to none....thus, there shouldn't be any aspect of the overall design that suffers a fundamental flaw ever again. Ideally....
 
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Ermintruder said:
... Half a century ago, a lot of the classic North American 'civil alphabet' companies seemed to be a lot more involved in sub-contracted work for NASA, such as ITT, IBM, AT&T, HP, as well as Texas Instruments & Gore. For reasons I don't know (but would like to understand) these commercial/non-defense organisations just don't *seem* to get much of a mention in the support of NASA activities nowadays (perhaps because their own star has dimmed somewhat as well). ...
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The 'civil alphabet' companies you listed were all once world-class players in advanced R&D / manufacturing relating to communications and IT. With the arguable exception of IBM, none of them can claim that status today. The tech that made them famous became everyday tech, and their foci shifted to the mundane marketplace.

Both TI and ITT sold off their defense-related businesses back in the 1990s. Neither would be a reasonable candidate for being prime contractor on a major NASA system (though either might still contribute at a lower level).

To the extent any of them support NASA projects nowadays it would be as subcontractors answering to the prime contractor on any given NASA contract.
 
I see the NASA Artemis programme is contracted out to various companies.
Space Launch System: Boeing - Orbital ATK - Aerojet Rocketdyne - Lockheed Martin
Orion: Lockheed Martin - Airbus Defence and Space
Lunar Gateway: (In conjunction with other countries as partners) SpaceX (and other support modules TBC)
Lunar Landers: SpaceX (with support from Lockheed Martin amongst others)
Spacesuits are expected to be continued to be supplied by ILC Dover.
 
The first rock sample from 'Perseverance' has gone missing.

"Engineers are trying to work out what went wrong when the US space agency's Perseverance rover tried to gather its first rock core on Mars.

The robot's mechanisms seemed to work perfectly but when a metal tube expected to hold the sample was examined, it was found to be empty.

The mission team think the particular properties of the target rock may have been to blame.

More images and telemetry pulled down from Mars should solve the puzzle.

"The initial thinking is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock target not reacting the way we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware issue with the sampling and caching system," said Jennifer Trosper, project manager for Perseverance at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58148756
 
Nosmo King said:
The first rock sample from 'Perseverance' has gone missing.

"Engineers are trying to work out what went wrong when the US space agency's Perseverance rover tried to gather its first rock core on Mars.

The robot's mechanisms seemed to work perfectly but when a metal tube expected to hold the sample was examined, it was found to be empty.

The mission team think the particular properties of the target rock may have been to blame.

More images and telemetry pulled down from Mars should solve the puzzle.

"The initial thinking is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock target not reacting the way we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware issue with the sampling and caching system," said Jennifer Trosper, project manager for Perseverance at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58148756
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Turned to powder.
 
Its amazing how long these robotic probes are lasting considering solar - nuclear, etc., the fuel needed to keep them going.
 
NASA says ooops !

Since 2012 the rover curiousity has been exploring Gale Crater.

Now NASA claims the rover never got into the crater material, but just wind blow dust on the outside of the crater.
 
NASA is saying WTF ?

Perseverance’s first drilled out rock sample simply vanished.
 
charliebrown said:
NASA is saying WTF ?
Perseverance’s first drilled out rock sample simply vanished.
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More accurately ... Perseverance's onboard systems didn't report the hollow tube that should have contained the rock sample contained the expected mass representing a successful sample.

One possibility that's been mentioned is that the drilling pulverized the rock and the powder simply fell out when the tube was extracted from the drilled hole.

NASA's analyzing data to try and understand what has or hasn't happened and then figure out what (if anything) may be wrong.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-team-assessing-first-mars-sampling-attempt
 
NASA has posted their conclusion that the missing rock core sample simply crumbled during the drilling procedure and failed to be extracted by the sample tube.
NASA May Have Solved The Weird Mystery of Perseverance's Missing Rock Sample

After analyzing data and photos from the rover for several days, NASA's Perseverance team determined that the rock most likely crumbled into powder or "small fragments".

"It appears that the rock was not robust enough to produce a core," Louise Jandura, chief engineer for the sampling system, said in a NASA blog post on Wednesday. "The material from the desired core is likely either in the bottom of the hole, in the cuttings pile, or some combination of both." ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-t...ut-why-perseverance-s-sampling-attempt-failed

Details On The NASA Blog: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/status/320/assessing-perseverances-first-sample-attempt/
 
EnolaGaia said:
NASA has posted their conclusion that the missing rock core sample simply crumbled during the drilling procedure and failed to be extracted by the sample tube.

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-t...ut-why-perseverance-s-sampling-attempt-failed

Details On The NASA Blog: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/status/320/assessing-perseverances-first-sample-attempt/
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Everybody figured that out from minute 1. They've only just come to this conclusion?
 
The Japanese space agency is planning to land a probe on Mars' moon Phobos and return a soil sample to earth by 2029.
Japan aims to bring back soil samples from Mars moon by 2029

Japan’s space agency plans to bring soil samples back from the Mars region ahead of the U.S. and Chinese missions now operating on Mars, in hopes of finding clues to the planet’s origin and traces of possible life.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, plans to launch an explorer in 2024 to land on the Martian moon Phobos to collect 10 grams (0.35 ounce) of soil and bring it back to Earth in 2029.

The rapid return trip would put Japan ahead of the United States and China in bringing back samples from the Martian region despite starting later ...

NASA’s Perseverance rover is operating in a Mars crater where it is to collect 31 samples that are to be returned to Earth with help from the European Space Agency as early as 2031. China landed a spacecraft on Mars in May and plans to bring back samples around 2030. ...

JAXA scientists believe about 0.1% of the surface soil on Phobos came from Mars, and 10 grams could contain about 30 granules, depending on the consistency of the soil ...

Tomohiro Usui, professor at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, said soil on Phobos is likely to be a mixture of material from the moon itself and material from Mars that was spread by sandstorms. Collecting samples from multiple locations on Phobos could provide a greater chance of obtaining possible traces of life from Mars than obtaining soil from a single location on Mars, he said. ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/business-japan-mars-science--b828a63158443c9f68ecb7a19df0e819
 
This just in my email box: NASA are saying they definitely got a rock core sample in a tube this time.

mars core 01.jpg
 
The helicopter occasionally flits around a bit (10 metres up) - I think JPL should send it down the Olympus Mons crater blasting out Ride of the Valkyries to test the planetary acoustics.

Mars helicopter_Seitah_01.jpg

“South Séítah” region of Mars’ Jezero Crater captured by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 12th flight, on Aug. 16, 2021.
 
Once a lake on Mars.

Images taken by Nasa’s Perseverance rover confirm Mars’ Jezero crater was once a quiet lake, fed steadily by a small river some 3.7 billion years ago.

The study shows how much water flowed into the crater – which today is a dry, wind-eroded depression – and indicates where the rover could search for signs of life.

The first scientific analysis of the images also reveals evidence that the crater endured flash floods. This flooding was energetic enough to sweep up large boulders from tens of miles upstream and deposit them into the lakebed, where the massive rocks still lie today.

Researchers based their findings on images of the rocks inside the crater on its western side.

Satellites had previously shown that this outcrop – when seen from above – resembled river deltas on Earth, where layers of sediment are deposited in the shape of a fan as the river feeds into a lake.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40715906.html
 
Copter still flying.

The Ingenuity Mars helicopter was never supposed to last this long.

NASA engineers built and tested the first self-powered aircraft to fly on another planet to answer a simple question: Could the helicopter fly at all? The goal was to take five flights in 30 Martian days or break the aircraft trying.

But more than 120 Martian days past that experiment window, Ingenuity is still flying and doing things no one ever expected. The helicopter, which took its first flight on April 19, is breaking its own records for distance and speed (SN: 4/19/21). It’s helping the Perseverance rover explore Jezero crater, near an ancient river delta that may hold signs of past Martian life (SN: 2/17/21). And Ingenuity is coping with changing seasons and navigating over rough terrain, two things that the flier wasn’t designed to do.

“It’s gotten into a good groove,” says Ingenuity’s original chief engineer Bob Balaram NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s in its element and having fun.”

Here’s what Ingenuity has been up to on Mars.

Ingenuity is flying farther, faster and higher than it did in its first few flights. The helicopter has lifted itself a maximum of 12 meters above the Martian surface, zipped along at up to five meters per second (about half as fast as record-setting sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner) and covered 625 meters (about a third the length of the Kentucky Derby) in a single flight. These extremes give engineers valuable information about the limits of flying on Mars.

“We are still trying to learn lessons,” says JPL robotics engineer Teddy Tzanetos, a team leader for the Ingenuity mission. “Flight after flight, we’re learning the boundaries of performance.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ingenuity-helicopter-flying-mars-perseverance-nasa
 
New analyses indicate the stratified bedrock in Jezero Crater is igneous rather than sedimentary - an unexpected finding.
Perseverance rover makes 'completely unexpected' volcanic discovery on Mars

Lava once flowed at the site of an ancient lake on Mars.

The Perseverance rover landed on the planet just 10 months ago, but it has already made that surprising discovery.

The rover's latest finding suggests that the bedrock it has been driving over since landing was once formed by volcanic lava flows -- something that was "completely unexpected," according to mission scientists. Previously, they thought the layered rocks Perseverance took photos of were sedimentary.

The rocks that Perseverance has sampled so far also revealed that they interacted with water multiple times, and some of them include organic molecules.

These discoveries could help scientists create an accurate timeline for the events that have taken place in Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake, and has wider implications for understanding Mars. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/15/world/perseverance-rover-mars-findings-scn/index.html
 
There be water ice ! Where are the Martians ?

Europe’s orbiter TGO has found lots of water ice below Mars’ surface in the Valles Mariner’s Canyon.

This canyon is five times the size of earth”s Grand Canyon.
 
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