Gizmodo: lander

NASA's New Altair Lunar Lander Simulation In Action

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:53:04 EST

The Constellation program may be in trouble, but that doesn't mean NASA's boffins are sitting around playing Asteroids, and flying rocket models. They are still planning to get back to the Moon, and they built a cool simulator for it:

This is the Altair moon lander simulator, the newest, most exciting toy for astronauts planning to go to the Moon and beyond. It's also one of the most difficult arcade games they can play, requiring landings within 10 feet of the target coordinates.

Built on the Vertical Motion Simulator at the NASA Ames Research Center, the sim has an internal layout similar to the real Altair's, which itself is very similar to the old Apollo Lunar Module. As in the LM, astronauts have to stand up looking down small windows. Unlike in the LM, however, most controls seem to be placed in touchscreens. I don't know about the astronauts, but I like the old school buttons and switches in the Lunar Module a lot better. Click. Click. CLICK. [CNET via Hyperbola]

New HiRISE Images Show Chilly, Frost-Covered Phoenix Lander

Rosa Golijan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:40:00 EST

Mars isn't exactly the warmest place during the winter transition, but as the first few rays of sunshine lick at the planet's surface we're able to make out the Phoenix lander shivering under a cover of dry-ice frost.

We're able to see the lander in the images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter despite the low-light conditions and the reflective effects of the carbon dioxide frost. The HiRISE team did have to play around with the contrast and angles to get the image we see, but how many pictures pass without some sort of processing anyway.

Photos like this one are intended to help us understand the winter patterns and transitions of Mars better, but all I understand at the moment is need to drink a cup of hot chocolate on behalf of the Phoenix lander. [HiRISE via NASA]

World’s Deepest Fish Filmed For the First Time

Jesus Diaz — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:00:00 EDT

This is a group of snailfish—the deepest living fish in existence—filmed alive for the first time in history in the name science and nausea. They live at depths of 4.6 miles (7,500 meters) or more, so scientists had to develop new camera technology capable of supporting a pressure of 8,000 tonnes per square metre—"the equivalent to that of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car"—for a period of days.

The submersible platform reached 4.78 miles down the Japan Sea trench, and had to stay there for two days to be able to obtain this crystal clear footage, taking a total of five hours to reach the seabed. The camera equipment was designed specifically for this mission by the engineers at OceanLab—the sub-sea research facility of the University of Aberdeen.

According to project leader Dr Alan Jamieson, the resulting video taking during those two days is "absolutely amazing".

We got some absolutely amazing footage from 7700 metres. More fish than we or anyone in the world would ever have thought possible at these depths. It’s incredible. These videos vastly exceed all our expectations from this research. We thought the deepest fishes would be motionless, solitary, fragile individuals eking out an existence in a food-sparse environment. But these fish aren’t loners. The images show groups that are sociable and active—possibly even families—feeding on little shrimp, yet living in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

Whatever. Any fish that have teeth that do this...

...are not my friends. [OceanLab via Daily Mail]

Video and image credit: Natural Environment Research Council and University of Aberdeen.

Phoenix Lander Has Touched Martian Water For the First Time

John Mahoney — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:25:00 EDT

NASA just announced that the Phoenix Lander has successfully scooped up a Martian water ice sample and placed it in its oven for scientific analysis. "Mars Odyssey discovered this ice six years ago, but we've now touched it and tasted it, which is something that hasn't been done before," said a scientist at today's press conference. The sample has been dubbed the "Wicked Witch" (because it's meeeelting, meeeelting—get it?) and it will continue to be analyzed over the course of the coming weeks as data trickles in. Exciting, exciting stuff from this very successful mission. More details and new hi-res surface images to follow.

The team has also decided to extend the mission to the end of the fiscal year to September 30, to a full 126 martian Sols (was scheduled for 90 sols initially) at the cost of another $2 million. A new full-color, 360° panorama should hit the web soon as well, and they've just started work on an even larger one that will be almost a gigabyte in size and will take 100 satellite passes to download.

Here's the panorama:

Click for the full version (it's a delicious 11MB).

Keeping with the fairytale theme, the ice sample came from the "Dodo Goldilocks" trench you can see here in this shot of the robot arm's workspace. The two trenches outlined in yellow will be new trenches dug as part of the mission's extension.

[NASA]

Mars Phoenix: We Got Touchdown

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:26:00 EDT

This time there weren't any imperial vs metric units frack-ups: the Phoenix Mars Lander touched down perfectly on the northern polar region of Mars, starting a three-month mission that will see the spacecraft digging in the dirt for frozen water and tiny green men.

NASA received the first signals at 7:53:44PM Eastern Time, which made engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona, Tucson, to jump on their seats overjoyed. We can't blame them: this is just the third time in history that a spacecraft has completed a soft landing on the red planet, 32 years after Viking 2. Now we only have to wait a couple more days to see if everything, including the critical 7.7-foot-long robotic scoop arm, is in working condition.

[NASA]

Today is Phoenix Mars Lander Day

Jack Loftus — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

As you digest hot dogs or tend to one of your geektastic Memorial Day grilling machines today, take a moment to consider NASA's Phoenix Lander, which is scheduled to touch down on Mars this evening. At about 8 p.m. EST, the multimillion dollar lander will enter the Red Planet's atmosphere and experience what CNN is calling "seven minutes of terror" (worry not, I checked the story and it has nothing to do with the Lander being in a closet with Paris Hilton). Then, during a maneuver that puts any earthbound supercar's brakes to shame, Phoenix will slow itself from approximately 13,000 miles per hour to about five in the space of six to seven minutes. Want to follow the probe's wild ride? There are a few sites covering the evening event live listed after the jump.

Tom's Astronomy Blog has assembled a list of Mars Lander links today:

CNN with Miles O'Brien streams the landing live later tonight.
NASA TV has web and TV coverage
Telescope coverage will be provided by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope

You should be aware that NASA has the odds stacked against it when it comes to off world remote control landings. To date, only five of thirteen landing attempts have been successful. NASA notes there will be a 15-minute delay between the landing and a confirmation, due to distance, so... *finger crossed* [Tom's Astronomy Blog]