Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

I wonder if they had any FIRST alums working on this project.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

One student alum and several founding and former mentors from Team 696 have been involved or are currently involved with different aspects of the project.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

Mars Lander Cost....2.5 Billion Dollars
Miles to Mars...94 to 235 million miles (depending on orbits)
Lines of code written for the Lander 500,000

Reaction of the staff in the control room upon landing...
Priceless
(even Dave got a little excited)

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

254 day trip to mars =)

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

I don't remember the exact number, but they just said in the post-landing conference that it's about $7 per American. What an excellent deal!

Being able to say to myself "I met him!" every time I see Dave on the livestream...feels good, man.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

The Museum of Flight here in Seattle put on an event led by Planetary Resources which has hired a significant portion of the MSL team. They had an absolutely wonderful 2 hours behind the scenes lecture to kick it off, however the best part was to watch the engineers who designed and built it celebrate it when their subsystem worked. I was like three seats away from the landing gear guy.

Even better was the Museum of Flight filled all of their theatres to capacity and had many more people in the lobby and attendees were young and old, men and women, engineers and nontechnical people. And everyone cheered at every step along the way, and when it was over the engineers up front got mobbed. That's what I want to see.

Major props to anyone who worked on the project! :cool:

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

That's awesome. The VP of Spacecraft Development at Planetary Resources was one of the founding mentors of 696. Some of my best memories of high school were seeing original CAD prints of the MER wheels that he designed, and he and I picking parts of the Small Parts catalog in 2002, and going to the hardware store with him. We are so fortunate that such amazing engineers have the generosity to volunteer portions of their lives to inspire our youth. Planetary Resources also has two other former mentors from 696.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

Watch the press conferences on NASA later today and over the next several days for more images.

I'd like to see an image from the orbiter with the rover/backshell under the parachute!

P.S. There a several mentors (past and present) who work on MSL.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

Better question:

How many Chairman's Award veterans are working in NASA's marketing department these days? Atleast half the awesomeness of the MSL is the genius marketing of this landing.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

Ask and you shall receive...




The full image and caption is here.

-dave


.

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

I saw somewhere that there was a 1.5 mile error between the target and actual landing site. Divided that by the distance the rover traveled from here to Mars that's an error of about 1.5*10^-7%!! :ahh:

Think about that the next time you're trying to get a game piece into a goal. :cool:

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

OK, but I get 6 weeks with at the budget of the Curiosity mission (i went with 2.5 billion over 8 years, making 6 weeks come out at approximately 35.9 million dollars) :)

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

I think I could make a pretty good robot for 35 million dollars...:rolleyes:

Re: The Ultimate Autonomous Mode: MSL EDL!
 

You can see the President talking to JPL here:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/video...a_id=150373681

There is a familiar face on the left.