Posted on 10/21/2016 2:24:09 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The lander, named Schiaparelli, stopped communicating with mission control about 1 minute before its planned touchdown on Mars Wednesday morning (Oct. 19). Newly released photos of the landing site by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) seem to confirm what ExoMars team members had suspected — that Schiaparelli died a violent death.
The photos show a bright feature consistent with the lander's 39-foot-wide (12 meters) parachute, as well as a 50-by-130-foot (15 by 40 m) dark patch likely created by the lander's impact, ESA officials said.
"Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometers [1.2 to 2.5 miles], therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h [186 mph]," ESA officials wrote in an update today (Oct. 21).
"The relatively large size of the feature would then arise from disturbed surface material," they added. "It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full. These preliminary interpretations will be refined following further analysis."
ExoMars team members think those tanks were still full because Schiaparelli's data indicate that the lander didn't fire its descent-slowing thrusters nearly as long as it was supposed to, ESA officials have said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
If isis were truly badass, they’d claim responsibility.
ESA and Russia are getting pretty good at bouncing landers off
planets and comets.
It’s been known to happen before, when someone mixed up feet vs meters and - having calculated that it must have landed - shut off the retro rockets a couple miles above ground. Splat.
Depends on the fuel and oxidizer, doesn’t it? No oxygen on Mars, so the two would have to be assumed to be “mixed” as the tanks broke and pipe spewed chemicals in various directions and at various quantities as they broke up in the near-vacuum of Mars.
On earth, a rocket explosion on the launch pad always has oxygen available to use up all of the available fuel. But on Mars, if the two were not hyperglotic (sp ??) and combusted by mixing, they would just evaporate as long as they didn’t “touch” at the right percentages.
You would think they would bounce a radar signal off the ground or something.
Meanwhile and back on earth, mooselimbs crave the 7th century.
Might want to avoid sending other probes to that area. Obviously something there that the locals don’t want us to see.
Muhahahaha!
The Metric system helps those who count on their fingers and toes. The Imperial system benefits everybody with the use of highly composite numbers.
Nah...Bush’s fault.
Not just any humans, but Americans.
The European Space Agency denied rumors that their engineers neglected to convert from Arabic cubits to meters in calculating the landing parameters.
“when someone mixed up feet vs meters”
I’m not one of those idiots that wants to see the USA blow billions of dollars switching *everything* over to metric. It’d be a total waste of money. I can’t see kilometers and liters making any difference in commerce. Now I might be for rods and hogsheads, but certainly not metric in this department :-) ;-P.
Now when it comes to engineering, machinery, and the like, it makes absolutely zero sense to stick with imperial units. None. Metric is soooooooooooooooooo much better to work with. I’m not suggesting that companies be forced to switch over instantaneously or have some kind of government oversight step in and put a pistol to your head (it’d wreak havoc on existing inventory), but nudging people to adopt solely metric would be great in the long run.
I’ve grown sick and tired recalling that 100mm = 3.9 inches when I have to try and figure out the size of something with only metric units available in a part description :-).
Maybe they used miles intead of km like we did
Gene Hunt, Sam Tyler, Chris, Ray, Annie.
Oops.
Mars is preparing the retaliatory strike as we speak...
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