NEAR safely lands on EROS!!!!

[The Mutha]

This must seriously be one of the most awesome things that NASA has managed to do since landing on the moon.
NEAR wasn't made to land on anythning, but they still managed to get it to land, and its still alive - and they are even thinking of taking it off again!

Shows how well built the thing is. Anyway, very exciting indeed!

Here is the link

 

[Locutus of Board]

Wow! I thank the heavens for you and your awesome post! I would have never have had such knowledge of this if you didn't offer your infinite wisdom here.

 

[The Mutha]

Well... I didn't see a similar post out there so I just felt like posting this.

I don't have a TV. I get all my news from cnn.com and news.bbc.co.uk.

You don't have to be cynical LOB. :/

 

[ltk007]

It seems to be that time of the month for LOB...

 

[Ladies Man]

Locutus of Board = @sshole?

 

[Locutus of Board]

No.

With a handle like Ladies man. Some fsckig comment.

If you were, why post here?

 

[datalink7]

Hey, this is cool news. I had heard about it, but didn't realize that it hadden't been built for landing. Sweet.

 

[Ladies Man]

No?

sure seems like it from 99% of your posts. Think your cute acting like that?

And i gotta do something in my free time

 

[Locutus of Board]

Yep. I'm "cute"

 

[UG]

Ahem.

Returning the thread to its topic, the structural integrity of the probe that made possible its survivng the landing is a direct result of having to survive the mechanical stresses of its rocket ride into orbit.

What I find to be particularly impressive about the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory's successful landing attempt is the skill of the scientists and computer programmers who first developed the math, then the command sequence, then the software by which the spacecraft could find its way safely to asteroid landfall.

Some people is awesome.

 

[The Mutha]

I know, that's the most amazing thing about it.

This thing is 3 billion miles away - its farthest probe from the earth that uses solar pannels (all other probes use plutonium decay to generate heat, and thus electricity, since at those distances, the sun's luminosity won't do much to solar pannels). At THAT distance, and orbiting a tiny object in space, it still managed to land without braking, and with its solar pannels facing the sun, and its antenna facing earth.

They are geniuses those dudes.

 

[The Mutha]

Ohh, and btw, LOB, if you think this piece of news is sooooooooooooooooo obvious, then you are assuming everyone is stuck in front of, or has access to a TV all day - a ridiculous assumption.

Why bother to reply to the thread if you are not going to be constructive. Being cynical like that just gives everyone the impression that you have nothing better to do than to reply to every thread in the forums with useless crap. No offense, but I'm sure you can contribute better than what you are contributing now. :-/

 

[UG]

Actually, orienting spacecraft relative to the stars is a very mature skill, as is following a prefered trajectory -- its been being done for 34 years.

Advancements in solar cell technology made the solar panels sufficiently efficient that the added expense of Radioactive Thermoelectric Generators was unnecessary.

Voyager II was navigated precisely passed Neptune, easily 12 times farther away than Eros.

Successfully setting a spacecraft into asteroid orbit was both new and quite skillful. Landing the spacecraft on the asteroid, especially one so irregularly shaped and thus with a time-variable, near-spacecraft (unintentional word play) gravitational field was both even more skillful and, for the success, less fortuitous.

 

[The Mutha]

I don't have the link to it, but I read an article somewhere mentioning how a spacecraft orients itself to point to the sun. I don't remember precisely how it works, but apparently a craft homes in on the radio signal from the sun... quite nifty.

 

[UG]

Typically, the various radiations of the sun are not kind to navigational sensors.

Rather, spacecraft use moderate powered telescopes and light-sensitive sensors to lock onto reference stars less bright than the sun, two at a time -- for x-axis and y-axis, and then use their radio antenna to lock onto Earth -- for z-axis, since constant communication with Earth is always desireable.

It's all pretty cool stuff, since it's in space.

 

[Corn]

LOB is just p1ssed because that link has too many hard words to read and not enough pretty pictures..........

Poor, poor Red Dawn immitation you got there LOB ya thread crapping chump, err... I mean chimp.

 

[apoppin]

So does this make up for the other recent expensive landing disappointments by NASA craft (that were designed to stand the shock of a landing and still transmit a message)?

 

[UG]

Apoppin,

Where's your faith when you really need it?

Must it always be a matter of your personal convenience?

 

[jimmygates]

Hopefully the lander doesn't get stuck by a rock.....lol..





-Jimbo

 

[apoppin]

UG, I believe you are referring to "faith" in men. That is perhaps the wrong choice of word - "trust" is a possibly better choice.

The successful NEAR landing - as far as I can make out - was a lucky "accident".

 

[UG]

Trust comes from experience not required by faith.

Lucky accident? The landing was no accident, neither was the survival of the spacecraft. The luck of the spacecraft may have been accidental.

 

[The Mutha]

The NEAR mission has been accomplished a long time ago. The budget is to run out wednesday (Valentine's day). They decided to try and land it because:

a) It would allow them to take more accurate photographs of EROS - which they managed, they got over 100 new high-res pics
b) Just maybe it would survive and keep sending signals to Earth... although the camera is blocked from view in the middle of the dust, the magnometer is as close to the center of gravity of EROS as it could be - and they might be able to get some accurate readings from it.

Scientist are puzzled that EROS doesn't have a magnetic field.

 

[apoppin]

<<Trust comes from experience not required by faith.>>

Then why did you ask about my &quot;faith&quot;?


<<The landing was no accident, neither was the survival of the spacecraft.>>

Then why was it expected to not survive the landing?

 

[The Mutha]

UG, you know any other cool upcoming missions from NASA or ESA?
You know where I can find good Space news? www.spacenews.com is paying, which makes it suck.

 

[UG]

<...Then why did you ask about my &quot;faith&quot;?..>

Because you appear to lack the relevent experience for trust.

<...Then why was it expected to not survive the landing?..>

It wasn't expected to not survive, it only was considered statistically unlikely, not impossible.

Now with the experience statistical re-analysis will define different expectations for similar craft in similar situations.

The_mutha,

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