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**venediene** · 08-11-2012, 11:26 AM

I saw the 3am press conference.

No new images. This was a debriefing from the landing team.

One old image is of the weather just prior to landing. None of the weather events was near Gale crater. For full size:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/6...68-43_full.jpg

Some information on the landing:
1) The information from Curiousity arrives on Earth from via four different routes - direct + three Mars orbiting satellite relays.
2) So far, Curiosity has recorded 100 MB of data which remains in storage onboard. Only 1 MB of data has been sent back to Earth so far.
3) The computer on Curiosity 133 MHz, 4 GB storage, about 1/10 the speed and 1/16 of the storage of a mobile phone.
4) MSL entered the atmosphere at Mach 24, the six balance masses were ejected at Mach 20.
5) There were three course corrections (known as bank reversals) on the way down before parachute deployment.
6) There was a tailwind on landing.
7) This is the 11th parachute descent on Mars.
8) The parachute was deployed at Mach 1.7
9) The wobbling motion while under parachute is known as "wrist mode"
10) While under parachute the spacecraft rotated at between 1 and 2 degrees per second.
11) The heat shield had moved 15 metres away in the first 3 seconds.
12) Landing time differed by only 0.6 seconds from a prediction made three weeks earlier.
13) No errors reported so far, everything happened on schedule and was within the expected range. Apart from landing with more fuel than expected.
14) The rocks around the landing site are about 2.7 billion years old.

Landing ellipse of Curiosity compared with those of previous missions.

A Hazmat camera picked up what is believed to be the dust plume from the sky crane crash. The sky crane has crashed before the first image was taken. The later image was after the dust plume had settled.

Landing sites observed (actual) vs those predicted from the EDL software.

The next four days (Sols 5 to 8) are going to be spent downloading and installing revision 10 (R10) software. This software is being downloaded now rather than before launch because of limitations on computer storage on Curiosity. As an overview, the software for descent and landing is known as ESL and the software for operation on the ground is known as FSW. What is being done over the next four days is overwriting the ESL software with FSW software. Only basic FSW software was loaded prior to launch, software for taking photographs for example. All the software for operating the robotic arm, drill, sampling, driving and autonomous navigation has yet to be downloaded. While this software download, installation, backup and testing is underway we can't expect to see much if any new science from Curiosity.

08-11-2012, 11:26 AM	#100
venediene Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 433 Senior Member	I saw the 3am press conference. No new images. This was a debriefing from the landing team. One old image is of the weather just prior to landing. None of the weather events was near Gale crater. For full size: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/6...68-43_full.jpg Some information on the landing: 1) The information from Curiousity arrives on Earth from via four different routes - direct + three Mars orbiting satellite relays. 2) So far, Curiosity has recorded 100 MB of data which remains in storage onboard. Only 1 MB of data has been sent back to Earth so far. 3) The computer on Curiosity 133 MHz, 4 GB storage, about 1/10 the speed and 1/16 of the storage of a mobile phone. 4) MSL entered the atmosphere at Mach 24, the six balance masses were ejected at Mach 20. 5) There were three course corrections (known as bank reversals) on the way down before parachute deployment. 6) There was a tailwind on landing. 7) This is the 11th parachute descent on Mars. 8) The parachute was deployed at Mach 1.7 9) The wobbling motion while under parachute is known as "wrist mode" 10) While under parachute the spacecraft rotated at between 1 and 2 degrees per second. 11) The heat shield had moved 15 metres away in the first 3 seconds. 12) Landing time differed by only 0.6 seconds from a prediction made three weeks earlier. 13) No errors reported so far, everything happened on schedule and was within the expected range. Apart from landing with more fuel than expected. 14) The rocks around the landing site are about 2.7 billion years old. Landing ellipse of Curiosity compared with those of previous missions. A Hazmat camera picked up what is believed to be the dust plume from the sky crane crash. The sky crane has crashed before the first image was taken. The later image was after the dust plume had settled. Landing sites observed (actual) vs those predicted from the EDL software. The next four days (Sols 5 to 8) are going to be spent downloading and installing revision 10 (R10) software. This software is being downloaded now rather than before launch because of limitations on computer storage on Curiosity. As an overview, the software for descent and landing is known as ESL and the software for operation on the ground is known as FSW. What is being done over the next four days is overwriting the ESL software with FSW software. Only basic FSW software was loaded prior to launch, software for taking photographs for example. All the software for operating the robotic arm, drill, sampling, driving and autonomous navigation has yet to be downloaded. While this software download, installation, backup and testing is underway we can't expect to see much if any new science from Curiosity.
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