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Thorben wrote:Certainly nice to hear that there has been a reponse by the probe. But it is certainly a bit too early to be over-joyed by this.

Stick a $5000 NASA fork in this thing. They keep calling but nobody's home.

In the meantime ........ (no thread started)



A new ATV for Batman in the upcomming movie



http://www.space.com/13689-nasa-amazing ... ience.html
http://www.space.com/13738-nasa-mars-ro ... aunch.html
http://www.space.com/13739-nasa-mars-ex ... uture.html
http://www.space.com/13689-nasa-amazing ... ience.html

Something mildly interesting. Not too sure they would ever commit to something like this.

Space agency chiefs from the U.S., Europe and Russia are setting up talks aimed at finding a way to work toward a Mars sample-return mission in the face of budget uncertainty in the U.S. that threatens to upend the joint effort worked out by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Although NASA will loft the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission as early as Nov. 25 to help find the best place to look for samples, and Congress came close to meeting NASA’s full funding request for planetary science in its fiscal 2012 appropriation, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has so far withheld its endorsement of joint NASA/ESA missions in 2016 and 2018.

As a result, ESA has turned to the Russian space agency Roscosmos for possible launch of its planned Mars orbiter in the 2016 window. Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin says in principle that Russia will be glad to accommodate ESA, but details remain to be hammered out.

ESA spokesman Franco Bonacina says his agency is exploring the possibility of Russian involvement in its ExoMars program, and is considering launching the 2016 mission on a Proton rocket in the absence of a firm commitment from the U.S. In an unusual move, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain is organizing a trilateral meeting in December with Popovkin and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden solely to discuss Russian participation in the ExoMars program, according to Bonacina.

I'm not so sure if we should be giving the Russians our 2016 orbiter.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... annel=awst

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/ ... =obnetwork

Off with their Heads!!!


Russian President Threatens to Punish Officials for Space Failures


The Russian president threatened to punish those responsible for the country's recent space failures, which included the botched launch of a Mars probe earlier this month.

Dmitry Medvedev warned that the space officials responsible could face heavy fines or even criminal penalties, the Ria Novosti news agency reported.

I guess the associated parties should be glad this isn't the former USSR - they'd be locked away in a Gulag in the far east somewhere . . .

Heh...with Premier Putin pulling the strings...who says they aren't?

Most are now giving up on Phobos.

The European Space Agency announced today (Dec. 2) that it will stop trying to contact the beleaguered Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which has been stuck in the wrong orbit for almost a month now.

http://news.yahoo.com/phobos-grunt-dead ... 04321.html

Too bad that mission seems to fail.

Fumanchewd wrote:
Stick a $5000 NASA fork in this thing. They keep calling but nobody's home.

In the meantime ........ (no thread started)

Strange this has no thread of its own. It is a spectacular mission, just look how large this rover is. I still remember this cute little Sojourner launched in the 90s, and now we are talking about a rover ten times larger.

Good luck to this mission, hope it works out fine.

Thorben wrote:Strange this has no thread of its own. It is a spectacular mission, just look how large this rover is.

For some reason, it hasn't received as much press here as it should have. Personally, I still mourn for the death of the Spirit Rover...

AndesSMF wrote: Personally, I still mourn for the death of the Spirit Rover...

Ah, don't. Eight years is a great success, and there is still Opportunity rover driving around.

Thorben wrote:Eight years is a great success, and there is still Opportunity rover driving around.

It was a great success, and it continues being so. Interestingly, it was the Martian atmosphere itself that allowed them to work for so long. It was assumed that dust would blanket their solar panels and their output would go below what was required to power them up. But these event clear the panels at a constant rate and allowed them to operate for far longer.

At it was their duration that in a sense 'endeared' them to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event

Don't anthropomorphise them, Andes. They hate that.

ShanwickOceanic wrote:Don't anthropomorphise them, Andes. They hate that.

Too late

AndesSMF wrote:

Thorben wrote:Eight years is a great success, and there is still Opportunity rover driving around.

It was a great success, and it continues being so. Interestingly, it was the Martian atmosphere itself that allowed them to work for so long. It was assumed that dust would blanket their solar panels and their output would go below what was required to power them up. But these event clear the panels at a constant rate and allowed them to operate for far longer.

At it was their duration that in a sense 'endeared' them to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event

Yep, there is wind and then there is wind. Some blows sand on something, the other blows it away without adding new? Are those panels at a certain angle, to allow the dust to get off quicker?

ShanwickOceanic wrote:Don't anthropomorphise them, Andes. They hate that.

Yeah, it really hurts their feelings.

Great joke.

AndesSMF wrote:

ShanwickOceanic wrote:Don't anthropomorphise them, Andes. They hate that.

Too late

Oh, LEGO? How big is that thing?