Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Golombek, M..
Six landing sites that show evidence for processes involving water have been selected from a possible 185 for the Mars Exploration Rovers. These sites are being imaged by orbiting spacecraft and evaluated for science potential and safety before selection of two in May 2002. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
This paper describes various models made of Mars' topography that were used to help understand the engineering design trades involved in designing a Mars lander.
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The role of robots and humans in Mars Exploration is presented.
The IMP windsock experiment measured wind speeds at three heights within 1.2 m of the martian surface during Pathfinder landed operations. Data from the strongest breezes indicate aerodynamic roughness = 3 cm, wind friction speeds up to 1 m/sec.
This abstract reports on preliminary evaluation of engineering constraints on potential landing sites for the Mars Sample Return missions.
Five main stages of radial and concentric structures formed around Tharsis from the Noachian through the Amazonian as determined by geologic mapping of structures within the stratigraphic framework of Mars and by testing their orientations for radial and concentric orientations.
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There are many similarities between the Mars Surveyor '01 (MS '01) landing site selection process and that of Mars Pathfinder. The selection process includes two parallel activities in which engineers define and refine the capabilities of the spacecraft through design, testing and modeling and scientists define a set of landing site constraints based on the spacecraft design and landing scenario. As for Pathfinder, the safety of the site is without question the single most important factor, for the simple reason that failure to land safely yields no science and exposes the mission and program to considerable risk. The selection process must be thorough and defensible and capable of surviving multiple withering reviews similar to the Pathfinder decision. On Pathfinder, this was accomplished by attempting to understand the surface properties of sites using available remote sensing data sets and models based on them. Science objectives are factored into the selection process only after the safety of the site is validated. Finally, as for Pathfinder, the selection process is being done in an open environment with multiple opportunities for community involvement including open workshops, with education and outreach opportunities. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
There are many similarities between the Mars Surveyor '01 (MS '01) landing site selection process and that of Mars Pathfinder. The selection process includes two parallel activities in which engineers define and refine the capabilities of the spacecraft through design, testing and modeling and scientists define a set of landing site constraints based on the spacecraft design and landing scenario. As for Pathfinder, the safety of the site is without question the single most important factor, for the simple reason that failure to land safely yields no science and exposes the mission and program to considerable risk. The selection process must be thorough and defensible and capable of surviving multiple withering reviews similar to the Pathfinder decision. On Pathfinder, this was accomplished by attempting to understand the surface properties of sites using available remote sensing data sets and models based on them. Science objectives are factored into the selection process only after the safety of the site is validated. Finally, as for Pathfinder, the selection process is being done in an open environment with multiple opportunities for community involvement including open workshops, with education and outreach opportunities.
When the Sojourner Rover crawled over the Pathfinder Landing site on Mars last year, the images returned indicated that the site had changed little from when it was created by catastrophic floods some 1.8 to 3.5 billion years (Ga) ago.
There are many similarities between the Mars Surveyor '01 (MS '01) landing site selection process and that of Mars Pathfinder. The selection process includes two parallel activities in which engineers define and refine the capabilities of the spacecraft through design, testing and modeling and scientists define a set of landing site constraints based on the spacecraft design and landing scenario. As for Pathfinder, the safety of the site is without question the single most important factor, for the simple reason that failure to land safely yields no science and exposes the mission and program to considerable risk. The selection process must be thorough, defensible and capable of surviving multiple withering reviews similar to the Pathfinder decision. On Pathfinder, this was accomplished by attempting to understand the surface properties of sites using available remote sensing data sets and models based on them. Science objectives are factored into the selection process only after the safety of the site is validated. Finally, as for Pathfinder, the selection process is being done in an open environment with multiple opportunities for community involvement including open workshops, with education and outreach opportunities.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
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