Night Owls

The announcement has just come through from JPL operations: touchdown is confirmed via the Canberra tracking station. The sky crane manoeuvre executed its programmed descent sequence, and the vehicle is resting on the surface inside Gale Crater.

It is certainly an impressive achievement in autonomous systems engineering. One must credit the automated guidance routines for executing such a complex mechanical sequence without human intervention. However, a successful landing is merely the physical precondition for the actual programme.

Now begins the systematic verification of the platform. We must see whether the hazard avoidance cameras transmit their initial telemetry through Odyssey, whether the power bus remains nominal, and how the internal components withstood the mechanical deceleration. Until the engineering staff can verify system health and deploy the main mast over the coming days, we have no substantive confirmation of the rover's scientific viability. A functional landing gear does not yet equal an operational analytical laboratory.

OffByOne wrote:Until the engineering staff can verify system health and deploy the main mast over the coming days, we have no substantive confirmation of the rover's scientific viability.

OffByOne is quite right to keep his boots on the ground. A safe landing is a grand relief and a marvellous feat of engineering, but now the real work begins.

We must wait patiently for the health checks and those first small images from Odyssey. Let the systems settle before drawing conclusions.

Walter

The arrival of that first thumbnail from the rear hazard avoidance camera showing the wheel on the Martian surface is an immense relief. To see the sky crane deposit a metric ton of machinery into Gale Crater and clear the area safely is an outstanding engineering achievement by the JPL team, and everyone who designed that descent software deserves proper credit.

At the same time, we must maintain perspective as the celebration unfolds on the stream. A rover intact on the regolith merely provides the mobile chassis. The substantial scientific justification for this mission rests entirely upon whether the complex analytical payload survived that violent transition intact. The internal spectrometers, the sampling arm, and the geochemical laboratory inside the chassis are far more sensitive to shock and thermal stress than a ruggedised aluminium wheel.

We will not have true confirmation of the rover's scientific capability until the mast is raised, the main communication antennae are deployed, and the instruments run through their diagnostic routines over the coming sols. It is a splendid morning for aerospace engineering, but the scientific return remains entirely to be proven.

quasistatic wrote:The internal spectrometers, the sampling arm, and the geochemical laboratory inside the chassis are far more sensitive to shock and thermal stress than a ruggedised aluminium wheel.

my classroom erupted when that wheel photo popped up, absolutely unbelievable engineering! but quasistatic makes a really fair point, the chassis made it down fine but now we have to hold our breath to see if the delicate lab instruments survived that wild ride intact. still definitely celebrating this arvo though!

Blimey, absolutely mental that it actually worked! That wheel picture made the early alarm worth it. Fair point though, let's see if all the clever science kit inside survived the jolt before popping open the bubbly. Still, what a result! Head of Steam next Friday is definitely on, cheers

Small correction: the rover mass is not quite a metric ton. The flight weight of Curiosity is approximately 899 kilograms, or 900 kilograms if one rounds conventionally. That is certainly substantially heavier than the previous rovers, but precision in mass calculations matters when discussing kinetic energy transfer.

That minor detail aside, the subsequent operational phases will require an enormous amount of patience. Transmitting a single 64 by 64 pixel thumbnail through a UHF link on Mars Odyssey merely confirms the camera optics cleared the dust cover and the basic data bus functioned during relay. The actual analytical hardware - namely the internal ovens, the gas chromatograph, and the robotic turret drill - must undergo extensive cold-starts and baseline calibrations before any geological findings can be considered valid. In the Netherlands we have a sensible saying, 'men moet de huid niet verkopen voor de beer geschoten is'. Delivering the laboratory to the surface of Gale Crater is an undeniable triumph of aerospace logistics, but until the instrument spectra return verifiable data, the mission's ultimate return on investment remains completely undecided.

Point taken on the precise mass, OffByOne, and the Dutch proverb fits the instrument calibrations ahead quite nicely.

quasistatic wrote:Point taken on the precise mass, OffByOne, and the Dutch proverb fits the instrument calibrations ahead quite nicely.

It is encouraging to see that perspective shared. With the landing complete, the public broadcast will likely dwindle down into speeches, but the real test is the engineering log over the next several sols. We shall have to wait patiently for those diagnostic readouts.

That Dutch proverb fits the bill nicely. A grand machine sitting on the red dust is a fine sight to behold, but a laboratory is only as good as the numbers it sends home.

Now comes the slow, methodical business of checking every switch and wire. One cannot rush baseline tests or mast deployments after a journey of that distance. The flight controllers will take their time, and rightly so.

At nearly two in the morning here in Toronto, my old bones are telling me it is time to turn in. A tremendous triumph for the engineers tonight, and we can inspect the morning readouts in due course.

Walter

Get some rest, Walter. It was well worth the early start on this side of the Atlantic, but you have certainly earned your sleep.

Now that the initial excitement on the stream is winding down, the real work shifts entirely to the flight software teams and their diagnostic passes. Raising the mast and high-gain antenna will take several sols, and we cannot expect any meaningful baseline readouts from the internal instruments until those comms links are fully configured. It will be a slow, quiet week of data verification, but that is precisely how thorough engineering ought to proceed.

quasistatic wrote:It will be a slow, quiet week of data verification, but that is precisely how thorough engineering ought to proceed.

Thank you, quasistatic. I am just shutting down the machine now.

Back in '79 during our big core store upgrade, we had junior analysts wanting to run production jobs the very minute the power lights came green. Our senior systems man told them straight: you do not ask a horse to pull a wagon until you have checked every buckle on the harness. That is exactly what JPL will be doing on Mars this week. The celebratory speeches are fine, but the diagnostics tell the tale.

A pleasure sharing the vigil with you all tonight.

Walter

The final school bell just went here in Melbourne, and honestly, trying to explain to a room of thirteen-year-olds why we now have to wait days just to see a mast raise or a laser fire was an exercise in patience in itself. They wanted full colour panoramas straight away, but Punchcard's harness analogy is spot on.

It is so easy to get caught up in the huge adrenaline rush of the touchdown and forget that this massive 900 kg contraption is essentially an automated chemistry department sitting in freezing conditions. OffByOne and quasistatic are totally right about the quiet grind ahead. The software handoffs, the power bus checks, warming up those tiny internal ovens, and testing whether the drill mechanism took any hidden mechanical stress during that cable drop are what actually make or break the mission now. The sky crane did its job brilliantly, but proving the analytical kit works is the real test.

I am finally shutting down the classroom projector and heading out for that celebratory drink. Sleep well Walter, what an unforgettable afternoon to watch together.

Pint is definitely earned, PintOfMild. Fair play to them, the crane pulling that off without binning the lot into the gravel was worth getting up for. Stream held up grand too. Punchcard and quasistatic have the right of it though - until the instruments pass their self-tests and power up properly, the real work has barely started.

Too right, time to let the boffins check their harness before we expect any proper Martian fireworks! cheers

Sysop_Kev wrote:Punchcard and quasistatic have the right of it though - until the instruments pass their self-tests and power up properly, the real work has barely started.

Heading out the door now, but seeing that sharper 256-pixel rear cam shot come through on my phone just before leaving was the cherry on top. Still, as Sysop_Kev says, the proper work starts with those instrument self-tests over the next few sols. Cheers everyone, have a great evening and sleep well!