Mars Reconnaissanse Orbiter!

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NASA Mars Spacecraft Detects Large Changes in Martian Sand Dunes
http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2012/120509.asp

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MRO CTX SURPASSES 75% COVERAGE OF MARS
http://www.msss.com/news/index.php?id=43

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) reached a major milestone at the end of March 2012, surpassing 75% coverage of the surface of Mars at a resolution of ~6 m/pixel. Covering up to 9390 km2 in a single image, CTX is well suited not only to create large areal mosaics, but also to acquire extensive repeat coverage. Over 6% of the planet has been covered in stereo with CTX, aiding in quantitative geomorphic studies. In total, CTX has acquired repeat coverage of nearly 30% of the planet, including routine monitoring of over 800 separate locations for surficial changes and annual spring and summer mosaics of the southern polar cap to monitor ongoing martian climate change.

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ счетчик переданных данных за один день скакнул с 169 до 174 терабит  

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До посадки на Марс всего несколько часов

Все системы MSL работают хорошо, траектория правильна. Шестая коррекция траектории отменена за ненадобностью. Межпланетному автомату предстоит совершить один из сложнейших подвигов в истории исследования космоса.

Mission Manager Brian Portock of JPL: "Мы волнуемся, но мы считаем, что мы очень хорошо подготовлены".

Позже сегодня, будет сделан выбор, следует ли обновить бортовую информацию, используемую во время автономного управления процедурой EDL. Планируется, что транслировать на Землю в режиме реального времени данные с MSL о критическом этапе посадки будет Марс Одиссей. Если по какой-то причине Марс Одиссей не сможет обеспечить такую трансляцию, узнать о результате можно будет лишь через два с лишним часа. На первой картинке схематично изображены способы передачи данных с MSL: розовенькие волны - тоновый сигнал на Землю в X-диапазоне, голубенькие волны - УКВ-сигнал на иск. спутники Марса.

Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing
08.05.12

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is healthy and right on course for a landing in several hours that will be one of the most difficult feats of robotic exploration ever attempted.

Emotions are strong in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., as the hours and miles race toward touchdown of the car-size Curiosity at about 10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (about 1:31 a.m. Aug. 6, EDT).

"Excitement is building while the team is diligently monitoring the spacecraft," said Mission Manager Brian Portock of JPL. "It's natural to get anxious before a big event, but we believe we are very well prepared."

Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well-suited for this mission of discovery.  The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human missions to Mars.



This global map of Mars was acquired on Aug. 4, 2012, by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS



This "thumbnail" image illustrates the size of the first image expected from NASA's Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Controllers decided Sunday morning to forgo the sixth and last opportunity on the mission calendar for a course-correction maneuver.  The spacecraft is headed for its target entry point at the top of Mars' atmosphere precisely enough without that maneuver.

Later today, mission controllers will choose whether or not to use a last opportunity for updating onboard information the spacecraft will use during its autonomous control of the entry, descent and landing. Parameters on a motion tracker were adjusted Saturday for fine-tuning determination of the spacecraft's orientation during the descent.

At the critical moment of Curiosity's touchdown, controllers and the rest of the world will be relying on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to provide immediate confirmation of a successful landing. Odyssey will turn to point in the right direction beforehand to listen to Curiosity during the landing. If for any reason that turn maneuver does not work, a successful landing cannot be confirmed until more than two hours later.

The landing will end a 36-week flight from Earth and begin at two-year prime mission on Mars. Researchers will use Curiosity's 10 science instruments to investigate whether Martian environmental conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .  You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120805.html

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NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing
08.06.12

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

PASADENA, Calif. – An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 meter) parachute as it descended towards its landing site at Gale Crater.

"If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."

The image of Curiosity on its parachute can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15978b.html



Curiosity and its parachute are in the center of the white box; the inset image is a cutout of the rover stretched to avoid saturation. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona



The green diamond shows approximately where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars, a region about 2 kilometers northeast of its target in the center of the estimated landing region (blue ellipse).

The image was taken while MRO was 211 miles (340 kilometers) away from the parachuting rover. Curiosity and its rocket-propelled backpack, contained within the conical-shaped back shell, had yet to be deployed. At the time, Curiosity was about two miles (three kilometers) above the Martian surface.

"Guess you could consider us the closest thing to paparazzi on Mars," said Milkovich. "We definitely caught NASA's newest celebrity in the act."

Curiosity, NASA's latest contribution to the Martian landscape, landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 on Aug. 6, EDT) near the foot of a mountain three miles tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles in diameter.

In other Curiosity news, one part of the rover team at the JPL continues to analyze the data from last night's landing while another continues to prepare the one-ton mobile laboratory for its future explorations of Gale Crater. One key assignment given to Curiosity for its first full day on Mars is to raise its high-gain antenna. Using this antenna will increase the data rate at which the rover can communicate directly with Earth. The mission will use relays to orbiters as the primary method for sending data home, because that method is much more energy-efficient for the rover.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance. Later in the mission, the rover will use a drill and scoop at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance to layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

For more information on the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and the Mars Exploration Rover Project are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter. For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806b.html

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The Descent of MSL (Curiosity) Captured by HiRISE
http://www.uahirise.org/releases/msl-descent.php

MSL EDL Plus 6 Day
http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_028335_1755

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On the Hunt for New Impact Craters

How exactly can we tell if an impact crater is new?

In this observation, we see a dark spot with a larger, rayed "blast zone" that was also apparent in a Context Camera image taken in 2011 (an instrument with a larger footprint than HiRISE and also on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter). However, a THEMIS image of the same area acquired in 2009 does not show the dark spot at all.

This is a great example of using three different instruments to view the same area not only to look for changes in the Martian landscape, but also to use the resolution of HiRISE to determine if this is indeed a new impact site.

This caption is based on the original science rationale.

Written by: HiRISE Science Team   (15 August 2012)

http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_027077_1785

[dmdimon]

MSL EDL Plus 6 Day
http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_028335_1755

а большой участок все-таки загадили при посадке...

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Наука требует жертв.

[Dude]

В RGB всё выглядит не так драматично.

[dmdimon]

это я к тому, что кран и в месте посадки загадил, соответственно, мерять состав не трогаясь с места может и нет смысла

[Dude]

это древний вопрос со времен Викингов, ответ простой -  заранее знаем чем "гадят" двигатели, и гидразин берем особой очистки.

[smokan]

NASA Orbiter Observations Point to 'Dry Ice' Snowfall on Mars

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data have given scientists the clearest evidence yet of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars. This reveals the only known example of carbon-dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system.

Frozen carbon dioxide, better known as "dry ice," requires temperatures of about minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 Celsius), which is much colder than needed for freezing water. Carbon-dioxide snow reminds scientists that although some parts of Mars may look quite Earth-like, the Red Planet is very different. The report is being published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," said the report's lead author, Paul Hayne of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide -- flakes of Martian air -- and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface."

The snowfalls occurred from clouds around the Red Planet's south pole in winter. The presence of carbon-dioxide ice in Mars' seasonal and residual southern polar caps has been known for decades. Also, NASA's Phoenix Lander mission in 2008 observed falling water-ice snow on northern Mars.

Hayne and six co-authors analyzed data gained by looking at clouds straight overhead and sideways with the Mars Climate Sounder, one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This instrument records brightness in nine wavebands of visible and infrared light as a way to examine particles and gases in the Martian atmosphere. The analysis was conducted while Hayne was a post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The data provide information about temperatures, particle sizes and their concentrations. The new analysis is based on data from observations in the south polar region during southern Mars winter in 2006-2007, identifying a tall carbon-dioxide cloud about 300 miles (500 kilometers) in diameter persisting over the pole and smaller, shorter-lived, lower-altitude carbon dioxide ice clouds at latitudes from 70 to 80 degrees south.

"One line of evidence for snow is that the carbon-dioxide ice particles in the clouds are large enough to fall to the ground during the lifespan of the clouds," co-author David Kass of JPL said. "Another comes from observations when the instrument is pointed toward the horizon, instead of down at the surface. The infrared spectra signature of the clouds viewed from this angle is clearly carbon-dioxide ice particles and they extend to the surface. By observing this way, the Mars Climate Sounder is able to distinguish the particles in the atmosphere from the dry ice on the surface."

Mars' south polar residual ice cap is the only place on the Red Planet where frozen carbon dioxide persists on the surface year-round. Just how the carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere gets deposited has been in question. It is unclear whether it occurs as snow or by freezing out at ground level as frost. These results show snowfall is especially vigorous on top of the residual cap.

"The finding of snowfall could mean that the type of deposition -- snow or frost -- is somehow linked to the year-to-year preservation of the residual cap," Hayne said.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, provided the Mars Climate Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20120911.html

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Ученые увидели углекислотный снегопад на Марсе

МОСКВА, 12 сен - РИА Новости. Американские ученые с помощью данных, собранных орбитальным зондом MRO, впервые получили доказательства того, что на Марсе идут снегопады из замерзшей углекислоты - "сухого льда".

"Это первые определенные свидетельства, указывающие на существование (на Марсе) облаков из углекислотного снега. Мы твердо установили, что эти облака состоят именно из углекислоты, и они достаточно плотные, чтобы из них могли идти снегопады", - сказал ведущий автор исследования Пол Хейн (Paul Hayne) из Калифорнийского технологического института, слова которого приводятся в сообщении НАСА.

Группа под его руководством изучала обнаруженные ранее так называемые "холодные пятна" на Марсе - области с аномально низкой яркостью в инфракрасном диапазоне.

Данные с прибора Mars Climate Sounder на борту MRO показали, что над холодными пятнами присутствуют облака из углекислоты, а на поверхности планеты в этих районах лежит иней.

"Мы обнаружили, что облака и поверхностные отложения играют значимую роль в понижении инфракрасной яркости, и гранулярные поверхностные отложения, вероятнее всего, возникли в результате снегопадов" - говорится в статье ученых, опубликованной в Journal of Geophysical Research.

Углекислотные снегопады на Марсе были зафиксированы во время зимнего сезона в южном полушарии планеты над южной полярной шапкой в 2006-2007 годах. Ученые обнаружили большие углекислотные облака размером около 500 километров над полярным районом и небольшие короткоживущие облака, на уровне 70-80 параллели. Присутствие на марсианских полюсах углекислотного льда было установлено десятилетия назад. Несколько лет назад зонд "Феникс" зафиксировал "обычный" водяной снег на Марсе.

http://ria.ru/science/20120912/748031873.html

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spots fresh impact crater


 A high-resolution telescope mounted on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has uncovered the scarred impact site formed when a rocky bolide struck the Martian surface.
The HiRISE camera on MRO collects sharp imagery of the Martian surface, resolving objects as small as about 3 feet across. Run by the University of Arizona, the instrument takes pictures of Mars in swaths. Scientists analyzing the imagery have occasionally spotted changes in terrain when comparing new pictures with previous data, revealing ongoing geologic activity, dust devils, and water and ice.
The HiRISE team released this image of an impact site last week. It formed some time between August 2005 and November 2010, the team said.
"The dark ejecta is obvious while the larger dark spot here is subtle," wrote Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for HiRISE.
"There is a tight cluster of craters rather than a single crater because rocky bolides often break up in the Martian atmosphere," McEwen wrote.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1211/12impact/

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/

Земля приняла 185 терабит информации с MRO

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Новые данные по сближению кометы C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) с Марсом

 

Как я писал ранее, недавно открытая комета C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), 19 октября 2014 года сблизится на рекордно малое расстояние с Марсом. Не исключен и сценарий столкновения кометы с планетой. Сегодня, на обсерватории ISON-NM, были получены новые астрометрические измерения этой кометы. На основе имеющихся измерений, были рассчитаны уточненные элементы ее орбиты. Результаты повторного расчета параметров сближения показывают то, что комета может пройти всего в 41 000 км (0.000276 а.е.) от центра планеты, т.е. менее чем в 37 000 км от ее поверхности!

Принимая во внимание размер комы, который должен превысить 100 000 км, вблизи перигелия ее орбиты, практически со ста процентной уверенностью можно сказать, что планета пройдет сквозь газовую оболочку кометы C/2013 A1. Обладая сверхразряженной атмосферой, поверхность красной планеты будет подвержена интенсивной бомбардировке микрочастицами, что, в том числе, может вызвать выход из строя работающие АМС.

Наблюдения продолжаются и будут прерваны лишь в конце весны, из-за малой элонгации кометы. Во второй половине лета наблюдения возобновятся и мы продолжим уточнять параметры тесного сближения кометы C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) и Марса.

http://spaceobs.org/ru/2013/02/27/new-data-concerning-the-close-approach-of-comet-c2013-a1-to-mars/

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instml пишет:
 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/

Земля приняла 185 терабит информации с MRO

187

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instml пишет:
 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/

Земля приняла 185 терабит информации с MRO

189

[bykovsky]

Athlon пишет:
Интересно, входит ли в его задачу съемка мест посадки советских АМС?

Только российских и