Mars Science Laboratory

[gfish]

I recently realized that I hadn't been keeping up with Mars rover development. Shameful, given my imaginary connections! So I pulled up details for the Mars Science Laboratory.



Immediate reaction: ...where are the solar panels? Followed quickly by: ...is that an RTG?

Yes, yes it is. I guess that solves the dust buildup problem! Just stick a radioisotope thermoelectric generator on it! That's just wonderfully crazy. Minimum power life of 14 years! They're really not messing around here.



It's also huge. Good old Sojourner could almost play hamster in its wheels!

Doesn't launch for another year, and its had plenty of budgetary issues already, so we'll see. And they're not using the balloon system for landing, which makes me nervous. But this is really very exciting.

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I thought I read they had a good engineering reason for skipping the balloons. Size? Weight? Cost? Difficulty of righting something that big if it bounced to a halt upside down? Difficulty of making something that big bounce at all?

I really hope they're using RTGs. The controversy over them has been pretty overblown, surely.

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that it is a weight issue. The rocket that can be used (Delta rocket as I recall) to send spacecraft to Mars has a definite payload limit. The balloon system is very reliable (Four attempts with four successful landings.), but adds a significant amount of mass that has to come from the rest of the payload. Larger rockets are available, but they are much more expensive. The 1976 Viking Landers used a mongo sized Titan IIIE rocket and was a very costly mission.