Video: '7 minutes of terror' for next Mars probe

6/25/2012 11:42 AM EDT

Could the 14-minute waiting time be compared to the anticipation that the Cape Canaveral control room experienced waiting for the Apollo missions to the moon back in the 1960s? Seems then there was also a waiting period before confirmation that the Eagle had landed. Maybe this is much more hazardous, and good that it is unmanned.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R3j1NU2nQM

6/25/2012 12:22 PM EDT

Comms delays for Apollo was more like 2 seconds, and there was constant telemetry flowing back to Houston mission control during lunar descent. Indeed, the LM crews were always being told to realign their antennas so Houston could continue receiving systems telemetry and voice. The difference of course was that there were two humans aboard. We're a long way from a manned Martian landing.

6/25/2012 3:16 PM EDT

That is a lot of unproven technologies to try all on the same mission. The reasoning is logical, but the end result could be a catastrophic waste of time and money. I'd be interested to hear what JPL's engineers calculated was the probability of success.

6/25/2012 3:18 PM EDT

I love the fact that at 0:23, "Code" is spelled incorrectly (Cod3). Im really hoping that was a joke, otherwise my faith in them getting all 500,000 lines correct just took a bit of a nosedive...

6/25/2012 3:21 PM EDT

They should name this thing Schrödinger's lander.

6/25/2012 3:24 PM EDT

Let's hope they dont mix-up English and Metric units again.....

Seriously, though, I'm curious how much testing was (or could be) done here on Earth given Martian gravity is 38% of Earth's.

6/25/2012 3:34 PM EDT

Is it irony or subtle humor that the graphic at about 0:21 says "500,000 LINES OF [sic] COD3", followed by "ZERO MARGIN OF ERROR"? Just hoping we're not back to the era of the km/miles debacle and sensors on spring-loaded legs without debouncing.

6/25/2012 4:18 PM EDT

"...Gale Crater, which is suspected of harboring signs of Martian life."

Signs of water, yes. Conditions suitable for life, yes. Signs of life, ummm, no.

6/25/2012 5:43 PM EDT

"20 METERS above the surface we have to lower the Rover on a tether that is 21 FEET long"... have a bad feeling about this..

6/25/2012 5:46 PM EDT

Hopefully, the writer meant to say, "braking rockets", not "breaking rockets". I would want the rockets to slow down the vehicle, not to "break".....

6/25/2012 6:12 PM EDT

I did, that was stupid and it has been corrected. Thanks for for the "break".

6/25/2012 6:23 PM EDT

While it didn't use a skycrane concept, the Phoenix Lander in 2008 did use a heat shield, then parachutes which were jettisoned, and finally braking rockets to a successful soft landing.

6/25/2012 7:02 PM EDT

Mars missions have curses. The mission team here multiplied the curse 100x by failing to adhere to one fundamental principle: K.I.S.S.

6/25/2012 8:46 PM EDT

The complexity of this undertaking is mind boggling. Lowering the rover down on a tether from a rocket propelled remote controlled vehicle? Indeed, no evidence of the K.I.S.S. principle here. That 14 minute delay to find out if all went according to plan is going to be brutal at mission control.

Great video, BTW.

6/25/2012 8:48 PM EDT

Here's video of a related space development: SpaceX conducting a full duration test firing of its Merlin 1D engine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=976LHTpnZkY&feature=youtu.be

6/26/2012 1:50 AM EDT

It is interesting to know exactly at what instance the landing sequence is activated and will it be activated from the control center on earth? the 14 minute delay in the signal transmission makes the whole maneuver very interesting.

6/26/2012 5:44 AM EDT

It all automation and robotic work at high velocity and heat, it would be very much interesting event to see the landing process, but unfortunately no camera can record the actual landing process and send it back to earth. But still it is very good that people who are working on this project has disclosed this much details of the project. The comment trails are also very much interesting, I would like to see more interesting comments coming up here.

6/26/2012 10:18 AM EDT

Personally, I applaud the engineers behind this entire mission. They were given an almost impossible task and came up with a solution (despite all the arm chair quarter backing going on). Though there are so many variables involved anything could happen (one slight crack in a PCB trace is all it takes to destroy an entire mission) they undertook it all with eyes wide open and didn't appear to back down in the slightest (as an aside, I once was given the task to design a power transistor for a flight surface of a fighter jet. I begged off the project). And let's be careful of something I see creeping more and more into into the "common consciousness"; there are "engineers" and then there are "Engineers". These people are the best of the best (I won't get dragged into silly arguments about that statement). This isn't a new iPhone we're talking about (antenna where?); these guys and women have the brains and the tools to do the job. A friend from the Air Force made me laugh-out-loud once when he was describing fighter pilots; "they're smarter than you, they think faster than you, they're taller than you, they're teeth are whiter and straighter than yours, they are simply better made humans than you". Let's not assume that the people working on this are the same as the guy in the next cubicle that thinks that current flow is "left to right". I hope they pull pull this off; if the do there should be ticker tape parades and a holiday for them. Instead, we'll most likely have to hear more about the Kardashians.

6/26/2012 10:34 AM EDT

A word about automation and robotics: I was at a talk regarding the "state-of-the-state" in automobile (let's say) "smarts". After a demonstration (I don't want to be coy about it, I can't go into details as to what I saw) the statement was made "the biggest problem with automobiles and traffic is the person behind the wheel". Of course this statement implied major changes to our roadways and highways but the point was well taken. Things are a little different than they were during the Apollo missions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer).

6/26/2012 12:12 PM EDT

It must be quite awe-striking if someone happens to be on Mars to witness this. This is exactly like what Carl Sagan has said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

6/26/2012 12:58 PM EDT

If we take a look at Space-X and at this mission, we can see what I see as the future of space leadership for this country: Private industry refining orbital work into just another commercial business and NASA exploring, inventing and pushing the envelope.

6/26/2012 5:39 PM EDT

Space technology works because it is an assembly of simple components or other simple assemblies. Each assembly step is examined to ensure it does not create additional complexity in its components or other assemblies (loose coupling, encapsulation). Components are based on known provable or reliably simulated principles (= reusing prior art). Interfaces are designed and reused consistently, so that the parent design can be exhaustively tested and the benefits inherited by the child applications.

Can we learn from this? It _is_ rocket science, but it is mostly not complicated in the sense of magic, impenetrable black boxes.

On the other hand, a lot of the math IS complicated, in the flight vectors and even the reliability engineering statistics.

6/26/2012 9:01 PM EDT

This is the most complicated automated high-reliability project I've ever heard of. I think it's great, and I wish them complete success.

This is why we shouldn't waste money on manned missions. In order to get a big science package to Mars, they're doing something incredibly risky.

If humans were sent, the whole project would be about keeping them alive. The project would take forever, and in the end, there'd be no room left over for actual science.

6/26/2012 11:18 PM EDT

One simple question was never addressed in this extraordinary story and challenge that is certainly attracting a record breaking volume of commentary. Why not build upon the manned lunar landing technology with a radar equipped control rather than a human pilot? Seems like a much lower risk solution for a comparable payload weight (the lunar lander weighed 16 tons but the moon has a lower gravitational force).

6/28/2012 1:17 PM EDT

Very interesting article and discussion...but I am unable to enjoy the video. For whatever reason, not all of the controls are visible. I wanted to watch full-screen, so I clicked around, but no go. Now I get no sound.

I am using Firefox 13.0.1 up-to-date. I also tried IE9, but results are the same (no full-screen button visible, no sound).

Can this be fixed? Or can someone provide a link to somewhere else I can see the video directly?

6/28/2012 5:13 PM EDT

Try the Smithsonian magazine site and wait for the commercial to end:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/Curiositys-Seven-Minutes-of-Terror.html

7/4/2012 1:41 PM EDT

Very nice video. At least I can appreciate why MSL went way over budget. The first question that came to my mind - why did Curiosity have to be so big and heavy as to require such an elaborate landing method? When I think of the best value for our space dollar, I think of Spirit and Opportunity, which lasted years beyond their required mission life.

7/17/2012 10:09 AM EDT

A reader asked earlier whether NASA had calculated the chances for successfully landing Curiosity on Mars in August. Here is the full response to our question from a spokesman at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is subject to different interpretations:

"No. Important risks are the unknowns, which resist calculating."

7/17/2012 10:31 AM EDT

From July 16 NASA press conference:

"We expect to get Curiosity safely onto the ground, but there is no guarantee. The risks are real," said Pete Theisinger, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Science Laboratory project manager.

8/6/2012 9:34 PM EDT

As we know, it landed successfully! CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE AT JPL! I said it before and I'll say it again, you guys should have a holiday named after you and a ticket-tape parade! I can't begin to express how happy I am for you all! Congrats! Congrats! Congrats!