Epic! I think people take these types of feats (even though it hasn't happened yet) for granted. Everything about this and other space projects is just simply amazing. Cant wait till landing!
I think it would be an incredibly amazing feeling to feel like you were part of the team that put something like this on another PLANET. Man.. I would love to be involved in that work. Can you imagine how nervous you would be while it was going in for landing? Then if it was a success the sheer amount of joy? Absolutely amazing stuff!!! No more bouncing bubbles and jolty landings, that's just pure awesome.
i love this video. it got my pulse going. i could spent all day replying to comments. but just so everyone knows... the scientists or engineers don't make the video... some digital movie production team does... tell them there is no sound in space.
@golferhoops Well actually they are not in the middle of space, they are on mars (the same way that we are not in the middle of space, but rather on the earth). Also, mars does have an atmosphere meaning sounds can be heard, otherwise the parachute would have no effect on the rover.
@Wilson1592 They're just using that piece to hold fuel and the vertical boosters for the landing. After the rover is on the ground they sever the cables connecting the two pieces and they want to discard it far away so it doesn't hit the rover when it crashes to the ground.
@Deathwish026 The atmosphere on Mars is typically 1% as dense as on Earth. Thus a 100mph Hurricane force wind on Earth, would feel, roughly, like a 1mph breeze on Mars. This landing system can actually handle a breeze with ease. The old solid-rocket and airbag system was very sensitive to winds.
Astounding that all that will work after such a long flight & forces on the craft, that'd'll work as planned, I sure do look forward to it ! ! ! UBER amazing, fun & visceral video.
The passion comes from wanting to better understand how things in the universe happen. If we have a better understanding, we can have a clearer understanding what happened in the past and what might happen in the future. Everyone is born with a creative mind and a need to explore, it's not just one country, though Americans have made it a priority to understand these things better and look to the future.
@polka23dot Large wheels also mean proportionally more weight, because you need a larger support structure for the wheel since it is so much larger. Large wheels also are harder to fold up in the aeroshell, requiring more space. The unfolding mechanism also has to be stronger, to accommodate for the weight of the heavier wheels, which means you need stronger support and stronger motors to unfold the rover. The weight gets exponentially higher when you add even small amounts of weight.
@Ariomaniac basically, the rocket pushes against its own fuel. Stand on some slippery ice. Grab something heavy, like a medicine ball. In this analogy, you are the rocket and the ball is the fuel. Throw the ball forward as hard as you can. You'll slide backwards, or at the very least, you'll feel a backwards push from the ball. A rocket is basically doing the same thing, just throwing mass out of one end (much more of it, and much faster than you and the ball), and moving the opposite direction.
@Wilson1592 my guess is that it fucks off so it doesn't endanger the rover by crashing into it on accident. They're likely just crashing it somewhere it won't interfere with the mission.
@SlyDepth No. The solar power was sufficient for Spirit and Opportunity, but Curiosity uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (radioactive decay produces heat which is converted to electricity). That's why it can't run more than a year or so.
Question for the engineering guys out there. The landing platform that drops the lander and flys off to crash elsewhere. Is there any way to use that stage other than crashing? Could it say deploy a weather balloon and collect some data before it dies, or can they use it as an impactor to kick up some soil?
@Morrgore it crashes. there are fuel requirements that say after Rover separation the Descent Stage must maintain a minimum altitude for a minimum distance. depending on the atmospheric conditions during Entry, we may have a lot of fuel, or the probabilistic minimum fuel. Either way we get a safe distance from the Rover; so in case the pressurant tanks explode on impact, no debris can have enough energy to hit the Rover. I hope MRO catches it all on HiRes video.
I was in NASA few weeks ago saw the moon dust the moon rocks and the rockets which took breath away they were awesome,and watched a live launch that agin was awesome and yes they did go to the moon because I watched it live on TV that was incredible as this animation is well done NASA keep up the good work
I imagine that the feelings that this video generates in me, are close to what religious people might feel when they have "religious experiences". This blows my mind and makes me want to cry with joy.
@Xeramach it's too big to use airbags like the last rovers. this one would just flatten the ballons like they were hardly there. besides that, this way they have precision control over where it lands instead of it bouncing for a mile before stopping
@aigg distance between the Earth and Mars changes due to their eliptical orbits. Their average orbit distance is 78,341,212 Km so assuming it takes 8.5 months....Roughly 6234 hours. 78,341,212 Km / 6234 hours = 12,566.76 km/hour or 7807.73 mi/hr. Though it is actually very rare the distance between them is this average so the actual speed would be different though somewhere near there.
@Ariomaniac And this experiment would work in a vacuum, too. If you think throwing the ball causes you to move backwards because the ball is pushing against the air, try pushing against the air with your hands, and see how far that gets you.
@WhatWouldBukowskiDo because the atmosphere on Mars isn't nearly as dense as Earths, so the parachute won't be able to slow it down enough. On the other Mars rover missions they used giant balloons under the rovers to break the fall after the parachute.
@Anthony883 Cause if photons move through z, you want to catch them with something that covers x and y. Squares are pretty convenient when you're working in two dimensions. If they were circles, there'd be big gaps between them. Hexagons would work, but the edges of the panels would be tricky.
@Super2Donny MSL weighs 2000 lbs, almost twice as much as the previous rover/lander. The rover/lander of the previous missions were already at their upper limit for using the airbag landing system. For a vehicle of this size, the retrorocket system is probably the only way to land MSL.
@polka23dot Large wheels are actually worse than larger numbers of small wheels for this application. Large wheels require more torque to turn, which means gearing down the motors even further than they already are, and requiring even more energy. Larger numbers of smaller wheels also provide better weight distribution, which helps prevent the rover from sinking into loose soil. Large wheels make sense for something like a dune buggy, but make no sense for a Mars rover.
Thanks, I doubt I'll ever fully understand, but that one makes some sense to me (spent many an hour having fun with a 2l bottle with some water, a cork and a bike pump as a kid).
@crockett5 I belive that because this rover is around 4x heavier than their past ones, they had to develop a new method to safely land the machine without damage.
@Mothdust666 Mars has a very thin atmosphere, unlike the moon. If anything it's the speed of sound that's incorrect, it should take longer for sound to reach the listener with increasing distance.
@1944GPW I came on the mission after the skycrane method was chosen. However, I do know early on there were tradestudies where the Descent Stage was under the Rover and landed first. It also had some crushable material to take some of the impact load. With all the other criteria on the landing zone, it was a big concern that we would land on a surface that would make the Rover tip over.The number of things that drove this design cant fit in the number of characters given for a response.
@PocusUK I agree that it seems overly complicated but then again the guys who made this probely know what thay are doing.... If thay could have done it simpler, without losing safety thay probely would.
All landings are nerve-racking, but this sky crane thing really makes my head spin. If NASA actually pulls this off, I'll be really impressed. If I understand it correctly, the rover actually unfolds while being suspended under that rocket platform. Now recall how current rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) took days of careful and deliberate work to unfold -- MSL has to do it all by itself, within just seconds and flawlessly -- there's only one try.
@Wilson1592 The idea is to get it far away from the Rover. If it didn't fly away, the Rover would have an enormous useless metal booster strapped to its back, severely limiting its speed and movement capability...not to mention, we don't even know if the wheels have enough strength to even hold the thing up with the jets strapped to it. The...erm, axles(if you want to call them that) look rather fragile.
Instead of thinking about the exhaust doing most of the work outside of the rocket, think about what's going on on the inside of the rocket. There's a combustion chamber with a small opening going out the back of the rocket. The pressure in the chamber is almost greater than the volume of exhaust that can be pushed out the back. Because the exhaust outside the chamber can only go directly back, the rocket can only go directly forward. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
@jeolmmum Curiosity will be powered by the latest generation radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) from Boeing (as used by the successful Mars landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976). Radioisotope power systems are generators that produce electricity from the natural decay of plutonium-238, which is a non-fissile isotope of plutonium used in power systems for NASA spacecraft.
you are very right ! and i really don't know why people are like that. see if it is about sneezing, this machine sneezes many time until reaching on Mars...
This thing could wrong for perhaps ten thousand reasons. Anyone capable of imagining 1000 of those reasons is a genius and a whole lot of geniuses created this wondrous mission. I think and hope it will be a total success.
It makes me weep with pride that humans can do this. What happens to the rocket that helps land the Curiosity? Does it just fly off and crash somewhere?
You're most welcome :) Nope the Martians were lonely so we've sent them a toy to keep them company :) On that note, yes this rover would be 'lonely' as its landing site is much further away than those of the previous missions. Being a polar mission also explains why this one has to be nuclear powered as the level of sunlight at the poles are too low.
@shogo7g The perchlorate at the Phoenix site didn't come from the rocket exhaust. The rocket fuel . Perchlorate is Cl O4. The fuel on Phoenix was ulta pure Hydrazine (N2 H4). Neither the oxygen nor the chlorine components of Perchlorate could have come from the Phoenix exhaust.
@Ariomaniac Rockets aren't jets. Every chemical propulsion system requires two basic elements - The fuel and the oxidizer. Jets require air, specifically oxygen, as the oxidizer. Rocket fuel, on the other hand, carries its own oxidizer. For example, the propellant in the space shuttle (the actual shuttle, not the boosters at the side) was LH2-LOX - liquid hydrogen as fuel and the oxidizer was liquid oxygen. This is why rockets can work in vacuum (space) and underwater.
Very great report! I am interested in Mars for about 50 years. My first Pics I got from NASA direct on CDs. It was the Viking - Project.
Epic! I think people take these types of feats (even though it hasn't happened yet) for granted. Everything about this and other space projects is just simply amazing. Cant wait till landing!
3:13 "LATER FUCKER"
I think it would be an incredibly amazing feeling to feel like you were part of the team that put something like this on another PLANET.
Man.. I would love to be involved in that work. Can you imagine how nervous you would be while it was going in for landing? Then if it was a success the sheer amount of joy? Absolutely amazing stuff!!! No more bouncing bubbles and jolty landings, that's just pure awesome.
Yes this video is amazing. Whats more amazing is the engineering involved that will make this a reality.
finally, a mission that will really get things going with the mars landing. im happy im gonna be able to see this in my lifetime
amazing! congratulations to the scientist and engeneers all over the world who makes it happen!
i love this video. it got my pulse going. i could spent all day replying to comments. but just so everyone knows... the scientists or engineers don't make the video... some digital movie production team does... tell them there is no sound in space.
@golferhoops Well actually they are not in the middle of space, they are on mars (the same way that we are not in the middle of space, but rather on the earth). Also, mars does have an atmosphere meaning sounds can be heard, otherwise the parachute would have no effect on the rover.
Beautifully done. If machines experienced loneliness, this machine would go through its service life as the all-time loneliness champion.
im waitin for this many years and its finally here. its carying names of my whole family on the board :)
I got to watch it LAUNCH! Things like that make living in Florida worth it.
@Wilson1592 They're just using that piece to hold fuel and the vertical boosters for the landing. After the rover is on the ground they sever the cables connecting the two pieces and they want to discard it far away so it doesn't hit the rover when it crashes to the ground.
@Deathwish026 The atmosphere on Mars is typically 1% as dense as on Earth. Thus a 100mph Hurricane force wind on Earth, would feel, roughly, like a 1mph breeze on Mars. This landing system can actually handle a breeze with ease. The old solid-rocket and airbag system was very sensitive to winds.
This seems incredibly simple and not at all prone to failure.
This was brilliant-amazing work animators!
You rock physics, don't ever change.
Astounding that all that will work after such a long flight & forces on the craft, that'd'll work as planned, I sure do look forward to it ! ! ! UBER amazing, fun & visceral video.
The passion comes from wanting to better understand how things in the universe happen. If we have a better understanding, we can have a clearer understanding what happened in the past and what might happen in the future. Everyone is born with a creative mind and a need to explore, it's not just one country, though Americans have made it a priority to understand these things better and look to the future.
Thats truly amazing what we are doing in space. Loved the video.
@polka23dot Large wheels also mean proportionally more weight, because you need a larger support structure for the wheel since it is so much larger. Large wheels also are harder to fold up in the aeroshell, requiring more space. The unfolding mechanism also has to be stronger, to accommodate for the weight of the heavier wheels, which means you need stronger support and stronger motors to unfold the rover. The weight gets exponentially higher when you add even small amounts of weight.
The most brilliant landing video I have ever seen :-) Good luck.
@Ariomaniac basically, the rocket pushes against its own fuel. Stand on some slippery ice. Grab something heavy, like a medicine ball. In this analogy, you are the rocket and the ball is the fuel. Throw the ball forward as hard as you can. You'll slide backwards, or at the very least, you'll feel a backwards push from the ball. A rocket is basically doing the same thing, just throwing mass out of one end (much more of it, and much faster than you and the ball), and moving the opposite direction.
Really complicated landing sequence, hope it can do it!! Nice animation!!
@Wilson1592 my guess is that it fucks off so it doesn't endanger the rover by crashing into it on accident. They're likely just crashing it somewhere it won't interfere with the mission.
You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Future of mankind is in space and technology.
@SwansonBruce Mars has an atmosphere, there are particles which the sound waves can move through.
@MrSantaslave okay? i'm guessing it's about starcraft. but what origin? did huskey or hd said that in their videos?
@SlyDepth No. The solar power was sufficient for Spirit and Opportunity, but Curiosity uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (radioactive decay produces heat which is converted to electricity). That's why it can't run more than a year or so.
@JustGreatVids I think at 0:42 the craft is not in either atmospheres, so the shouldn't be any sound.
Impressive simulation - let's hope the technology delivers when it counts. Does this rover carry a video camera ?
I can't imagine the stress over at Nasa today. Good luck guys!
awesome - i can't wait til Sunday!
Great animation. Congratulations on the landing!
@holmesw25 The sound Vibrations would be there, it's just that there's no way for them to be transferred to the listener.
That will be the coolest thing that ever happened on Mars.
Question for the engineering guys out there. The landing platform that drops the lander and flys off to crash elsewhere. Is there any way to use that stage other than crashing? Could it say deploy a weather balloon and collect some data before it dies, or can they use it as an impactor to kick up some soil?
@Morrgore it crashes. there are fuel requirements that say after Rover separation the Descent Stage must maintain a minimum altitude for a minimum distance. depending on the atmospheric conditions during Entry, we may have a lot of fuel, or the probabilistic minimum fuel. Either way we get a safe distance from the Rover; so in case the pressurant tanks explode on impact, no debris can have enough energy to hit the Rover. I hope MRO catches it all on HiRes video.
I was in NASA few weeks ago saw the moon dust the moon rocks and the rockets which took breath away they were awesome,and watched a live launch that agin was awesome and yes they did go to the moon because I watched it live on TV that was incredible as this animation is well done NASA keep up the good work
I imagine that the feelings that this video generates in me, are close to what religious people might feel when they have "religious experiences".
This blows my mind and makes me want to cry with joy.
@AgrivatedKillah Yes we would. That's like saying "Without the Wright Brothers, we wouldn't have the airplane."
It's amazing! Congratulations to all of you. You are not human being but you are! Dilinh!
@Xeramach it's too big to use airbags like the last rovers. this one would just flatten the ballons like they were hardly there. besides that, this way they have precision control over where it lands instead of it bouncing for a mile before stopping
wawww...realy wondering and great efforts............!
@aigg distance between the Earth and Mars changes due to their eliptical orbits. Their average orbit distance is 78,341,212 Km so assuming it takes 8.5 months....Roughly 6234 hours. 78,341,212 Km / 6234 hours = 12,566.76 km/hour or 7807.73 mi/hr. Though it is actually very rare the distance between them is this average so the actual speed would be different though somewhere near there.
I like how there is sound in space...very realistic!
@jacksonkotch you do realize that the video shows that they "land it with some parachutes and rockets" right?
I was watching the landing from Czech Rep. Good one. I could not believe this can ever become true
You're absolutely correct in every way.
Nice work NASA...and said artist.
@Ariomaniac And this experiment would work in a vacuum, too. If you think throwing the ball causes you to move backwards because the ball is pushing against the air, try pushing against the air with your hands, and see how far that gets you.
I can't wait! :D August 6th at 9pm on the Science Channel there will be a special on this
@WhatWouldBukowskiDo because the atmosphere on Mars isn't nearly as dense as Earths, so the parachute won't be able to slow it down enough. On the other Mars rover missions they used giant balloons under the rovers to break the fall after the parachute.
I love the animation!
@austpom333 The rocket fuel for the landing is Hydrazine. It's just Nitrogen and Hydrogen. It's not a fossil fuel.
@josiachicas Sorry if i misunderstood that comment. But did you just say the solar panels made the pod move?
@Thatguywithlogic Do you have a better solution using available funds and technology? Or should we just not attempt to advance at all?
What happens to the hovering portion of the robot? Does it self destruct or is it used for some other purpose once it lands elsewhere?
@Anthony883 Cause if photons move through z, you want to catch them with something that covers x and y. Squares are pretty convenient when you're working in two dimensions. If they were circles, there'd be big gaps between them. Hexagons would work, but the edges of the panels would be tricky.
@TJohn7002
We can get sounds from vibration of satelite material, i think...
@Super2Donny MSL weighs 2000 lbs, almost twice as much as the previous rover/lander. The rover/lander of the previous missions were already at their upper limit for using the airbag landing system. For a vehicle of this size, the retrorocket system is probably the only way to land MSL.
@polka23dot Large wheels are actually worse than larger numbers of small wheels for this application. Large wheels require more torque to turn, which means gearing down the motors even further than they already are, and requiring even more energy. Larger numbers of smaller wheels also provide better weight distribution, which helps prevent the rover from sinking into loose soil. Large wheels make sense for something like a dune buggy, but make no sense for a Mars rover.
@ubergossen Incorrect, there is sound in space. Just not very much. Space is not a total vacuum.
Thanks, I doubt I'll ever fully understand, but that one makes some sense to me (spent many an hour having fun with a 2l bottle with some water, a cork and a bike pump as a kid).
Glad we dont have to wait years this time around after the launch!
It's going to be exciting to see the 'sky crane' landing/descent system finally in action..
It's amazing how many stages it's in.
@crockett5 I belive that because this rover is around 4x heavier than their past ones, they had to develop a new method to safely land the machine without damage.
And after having said all that, of course, it was a very good effort and the whole team did very well.
@Mothdust666 Mars has a very thin atmosphere, unlike the moon. If anything it's the speed of sound that's incorrect, it should take longer for sound to reach the listener with increasing distance.
I'm really glad NASA finally made sound in space. It was way too quiet out there.
@1944GPW I came on the mission after the skycrane method was chosen. However, I do know early on there were tradestudies where the Descent Stage was under the Rover and landed first. It also had some crushable material to take some of the impact load. With all the other criteria on the landing zone, it was a big concern that we would land on a surface that would make the Rover tip over.The number of things that drove this design cant fit in the number of characters given for a response.
@PocusUK I agree that it seems overly complicated but then again the guys who made this probely know what thay are doing.... If thay could have done it simpler, without losing safety thay probely would.
All landings are nerve-racking, but this sky crane thing really makes my head spin. If NASA actually pulls this off, I'll be really impressed. If I understand it correctly, the rover actually unfolds while being suspended under that rocket platform. Now recall how current rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) took days of careful and deliberate work to unfold -- MSL has to do it all by itself, within just seconds and flawlessly -- there's only one try.
@Max404s How do you think we've sent rovers to Mars in the past?
@Wilson1592 The idea is to get it far away from the Rover. If it didn't fly away, the Rover would have an enormous useless metal booster strapped to its back, severely limiting its speed and movement capability...not to mention, we don't even know if the wheels have enough strength to even hold the thing up with the jets strapped to it. The...erm, axles(if you want to call them that) look rather fragile.
What is the little piece jettisoned at 1:08?
i saw that video already.. but, like you i also want the better quality than that.. i stiill waiting for it❤❤
Is there any wind on mars? i mean the pharashute, will it have any effect?
What is the thing being sprayed out of the rocket to slow it down?
Instead of thinking about the exhaust doing most of the work outside of the rocket, think about what's going on on the inside of the rocket. There's a combustion chamber with a small opening going out the back of the rocket. The pressure in the chamber is almost greater than the volume of exhaust that can be pushed out the back. Because the exhaust outside the chamber can only go directly back, the rocket can only go directly forward. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
@GDop26 well I was meaning the part where the rover disconnects itself from the rocket which is not in earth or mars' atmosphere
Just one question. I thought you couldn't hear sound in the vacuum of space?
I know they are just sound effects but still
This should be a full length movie.
@jeolmmum Curiosity will be powered by the latest generation radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) from Boeing (as used by the successful Mars landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976). Radioisotope power systems are generators that produce electricity from the natural decay of plutonium-238, which is a non-fissile isotope of plutonium used in power systems for NASA spacecraft.
a parachute ? is there any kind of atmospere ?
you are very right ! and i really don't know why people are like that.
see if it is about sneezing, this machine sneezes many time until reaching on Mars...
Wow so on the news !!!!! i got soooo interested
This thing could wrong for perhaps ten thousand reasons. Anyone capable of imagining 1000 of those reasons is a genius and a whole lot of geniuses created this wondrous mission. I think and hope it will be a total success.
It makes me weep with pride that humans can do this. What happens to the rocket that helps land the Curiosity? Does it just fly off and crash somewhere?
How much delta V in that little final stage that was separated in earth orbit?
Great job! You got skills.
You're most welcome :) Nope the Martians were lonely so we've sent them a toy to keep them company :) On that note, yes this rover would be 'lonely' as its landing site is much further away than those of the previous missions. Being a polar mission also explains why this one has to be nuclear powered as the level of sunlight at the poles are too low.
@Song4Alex
dept? Don't you mean derped?
@shogo7g The perchlorate at the Phoenix site didn't come from the rocket exhaust. The rocket fuel . Perchlorate is Cl O4. The fuel on Phoenix was ulta pure Hydrazine (N2 H4). Neither the oxygen nor the chlorine components of Perchlorate could have come from the Phoenix exhaust.
@Staward This is hi-tech?
@Ariomaniac Rockets aren't jets. Every chemical propulsion system requires two basic elements - The fuel and the oxidizer. Jets require air, specifically oxygen, as the oxidizer. Rocket fuel, on the other hand, carries its own oxidizer. For example, the propellant in the space shuttle (the actual shuttle, not the boosters at the side) was LH2-LOX - liquid hydrogen as fuel and the oxidizer was liquid oxygen. This is why rockets can work in vacuum (space) and underwater.
@sweYoda2 It lifts off, flies and crashes in another direction to avoid hitting and consequently damaging the rover.
aweasome sound effects
@gregaclark2 On Mars, Yes.
But on its voyage there shouldn't be any. I'm sure they added it so it would seem more cinematic. I don't know.