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Mars Science Lab's Laser To Fast Track Discovery Of Martian Life
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Apr 14, 2005 Even before the Mars Science Lander (MSL) touches down from its hovering mother ship, like a baby spider from an egg case, the first of a slew of cameras will have started recording and storing high-resolution video of the landing area. The MSL landing will represent a first, says Frank Palluconi, MSL project scientist. After entering the Mars atmosphere like Viking and MER, but with a potential landing zone about one fourth the size he says, MSL will show its stuff. "It completes the descent down to the ten-meter [33-foot] level, where the descent vehicle hovers, and it lowers the rover on a tether down to the surface. By that time, the rover has erected its wheels, so it lands on its mobility system. And then the tether is cut and the descent stage flies away and is no longer used. It crashes." In addition to the obvious advantages of such a soft landing, hovering and the tether drop are possible to model mathematically, unlike the airbag landing the MER vehicles used. Tethered descent is also scalable, Palluconi says, whereas the much smaller MERs were pushing the envelope of the airbag system's capability.
Eyes on Mars Shooting will begin as soon as the heat shield drops from the MSL descent stage. The Mars Descent Imager will take video in megapixel resolution, comparable to modern consumer digital video cameras. Aimed straight down, this camera will provide a spider's eye view of the landing area - a very wide angle at first - and continue shooting until the rover touches down on Mars. Landing videos will be transmitted to Earth by the rover when it becomes fully functional. This visual information, showing the landing area and its surroundings in fine detail, along with the fact that the rover will land on its wheels (no tricky navigation off of a landing vehicle needed), will allow project scientists to begin working the rover much sooner. Once the rover's mast rises, and all systems are go, the real work will begin. As with MER, a mast-mounted, two-eyed camera system will feature prominently. The MastCam (like the descent imager) and an arm-mounted close-up camera, are being designed and built by Malin Space Science Systems. All three rely on similar full-color, high-resolution subsystems. MastCam takes the basic setup found on the MERs twin cameras - that allow scientists to assemble 3D images - and refines it considerably. MastCam has twin 10x optical zoom lenses, the same power as found in high-end consumer digital cameras on Earth. This will allow the camera to take not only wide-angle panoramas but also zoom in and focus on fist-sized rocks a kilometer (0.6 miles) away. MastCam also shoots high definition video, a first for Mars. Both stills and video will be captured in full color, just like with earthbound digital cameras.
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