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The fun starts on the 16th and will climax as Schiaparelli lander touches down next Wednesday
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/11/exomars_arrival/
Grab some popcorn, space enthusiasts, because this coming weekend the joint European Space Agency/Roscosmos "ExoMars" mission will arrive at Mars.
ExoMars broke the surly bonds of Earth last March and has since proven itself capable of taking photos and sending them home on a 2 Mbit/s link.
Now for the hard part.
The mission comprises two sub-missions. The first, the Schiaparelli lander, will separate from ExoMars on Sunday, October 16th. It will then spend three days circling Mars before making a six-minute descent to its surface. Schiaparelli is billed as a "landing demonstrator" that will "will test a range of technologies to enable a controlled descent and landing on Mars in preparation for future missions, including a heatshield, a parachute, a propulsion system and a crushable structure."
The heatshield is designed to help the survive its passage through the Martian atmosphere at an expected initial speed of 21,000km/hr. A pair of parachutes will then slow things further, before the propulsion system – rockets – lower it to just a couple of meters above Mars' surface. At that point the rockets will cut off and the "crushable structure" should absorb the impact.
The Entry and Descent Module Descent Camera (DECA) should shoot the whole thing.
The lander bears what the ESA calls a "small science package" that can measure "wind speed, humidity, pressure and temperature at its landing site, as well ... measurements of electric fields on the surface of Mars that may provide insight into how dust storms are triggered."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Tuesday October 11 2016, @08:10PM
I know people (on Earth) who would kill for that kind of bandwidth (yeah yeah I know, latency...)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 11 2016, @08:53PM
On top of which their bits travel a lot faster than mine.
I demand vacuum-fille fiber now!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:36PM
Super Bob does it again! Vacuum-filled! I assume that is what you meant. I will have to just sit and think about that one for a while. Vacuum. Filled with a vacuum. Like a vacuum tube just full of vacuum. Nope, still doesn't work. Super Bob may have crossed the line this time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:57PM
Admittedly an obscure reference:
http://www.cavebear.com/archive/cavebear/catalogue/fast-fiber.html [cavebear.com]
Check out the other products, including armor-piercing packets!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:24PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?