Preview of Dave's "Monster Truck on Mars"

[tseres]

i want one

[Tapoore]

Nice wheels!

[cooker52]

<sarcasm>So, how are they getting this one to Mars? It's a BEAST!</sarcasm>
No, it truly is a beast, but NASA always finds a way to get these thing up there. I think we should have a FIRST competition to see who can drive through that kind of terrain the best and just have a full out race. I think we need a robot race.

[Schnabel]

Originally Posted by chris31

Wow! That is a beast! I wonder what the speed of it is.

[sarcasm]Only about .567 kph. The torque is amazing though![/sarcasm]

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by cooker52

<sarcasm>So, how are they getting this one to Mars? It's a BEAST!</sarcasm>
No, it truly is a beast, but NASA always finds a way to get these thing up there. I think we should have a FIRST competition to see who can drive through that kind of terrain the best and just have a full out race. I think we need a robot race.

A fair portion of the avionics for MSL are being developed in my group, including the controlller for the Sky Crane.

-Kevin

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

A fair portion of the avionics for MSL are being developed in my group, including the controlller for the Sky Crane.

-Kevin

That is so cool! I think the retrorocket will turn out to be one of man's greatest inventions. I think I'll kind of miss the giant inflatable bouncing balls that landed Pathfinder and the MERs, through.

[seanwitte]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

A fair portion of the avionics for MSL are being developed in my group, including the controlller for the Sky Crane.

-Kevin

I remember seeing a preview of the Sky Crane, but the video is incredible. Now you just have to convince the science people to let you land close enough to one of the MER fellas that they can get a picture of the landing. Will it be drop tested before the big trip?

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by seanwitte

I remember seeing a preview of the Sky Crane, but the video is incredible. Now you just have to convince the science people to let you land close enough to one of the MER fellas that they can get a picture of the landing. Will it be drop tested before the big trip?

There will be lots of modeling, simulation, and bench testing of the various components, but I'm not sure if there will be a full-up drop test of the sky crane itself. I suspect Dave attended that portion of the Critical Design Review, so you might ask him for a more definitive answer.

-Kevin

[Protronie]

Yeah but can it crash a car?
Jump 10 feet in the air?
Or float on a lake?

I don't think Big Foot has anything to worry about

[cooker52]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

A fair portion of the avionics for MSL are being developed in my group, including the controlller for the Sky Crane.

-Kevin

Very impressive. Will it be more controllable than the MER on the landing?

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by cooker52

Very impressive. Will it be more controllable than the MER on the landing?

Yes, we'll have more control, but we're still not to the point where we can drop a lander right where we want to. There is a program based at JSC called ALHAT (Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology) that is looking at ways to autonomously land a spacecraft fairly close to a pre-determined location. One of the problems that my group is working on (with folks at Goddard) is providing the computational throughput needed to calculate a safe path to the landing area. Looking at the current algorithms, we think we'll need a computer(s) that can provide a sustained throughput of a few hundred billion calculations per second, which is a few orders of magnitude faster than current flight-qualified CPUs.

-Kevin

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by tseres

i want one

I would be happy just to see it.
To watch it.

[Pat McCarthy]

That thing is amazing!
But I think those cross-eye stereo images are even more amazing!