NASA Curiosity

[mac]

Naučna laboratorija Mars (Mars Science Laboratory), ili od milošte Curiosity, je poletela sa Zemlje 26.11.2011. i treba da sleti na Mars za desetak dana, 6. avgusta. Curiosity je veći i teži od svojih prethodnika, Spirit i Oportunity, i zato će se za sletanje po prvi put koristiti i vazdušni kran, letelica odvojena od samog rovera. Inženjerci su malo nervozni

Cilj ove misije je proučavanje klime i geologije Marsa, kao i mogućnosti da je Mars nekad bio pogodan za život. Bilo bi lepo, to jest spektakularno fenomenalno, da pronađemo bilo kakav trag života na Marsu.

[Gaff]

 William Shatner and Wil Wheaton welcome NASA's Curiosity rover to Mars

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/30/william-shatner-and-wil-wheato.html#

[Gaff]

Talk to the Man Who Drives the $2.6 Billion-Dollar Mars Curiosity Rover

(This interview has ended.)


(ili bar saznajte kako to čudo radi)

http://gizmodo.com/5931298/talk-to-the-man-who-drives-the-26-billion+dollar-mars-curiosity-rover

[Gaff]

HiRISE Camera to Attempt Imaging Curiosity's Descent to Mars

http://www.universetoday.com/96576/hirise-camera-to-attempt-imaging-curiositys-descent-to-mars/

[Gaff]

Da se podsetimo kako je izgledala pre poletanja.



http://boingboing.net/2011/04/06/nasa-mars-science-la.html

[mac]

Uskoro će im ovi roveri biti toliko glomazni da će morati da šalju manjeg robota koji će sastaviti veliki rover na licu mesta

[Gaff]

http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html

Explore the Solar system--> Nakon što prihvatite java aplikaciju (Run) --> Destination --> Spacecraft --> Mars Missions --> MSL (Curiosity) --> Go>

Igrajte se malo. Okrećite je. Isprobajte Tours & Features.
Probajte Live Mode, probajte Preview Mode.

[Gaff]

[Gaff]

[Gaff]

[Truba]

jesu naporni s ovim miljama 

[Gaff]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E88d4e1gYh0#!

[Gaff]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGMDXy-Y1I&feature=player_embedded#!

[Gaff]

Curiosity Spotted on Parachute by Orbiter


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15978b.html

[lilit]

http://io9.com/5932534/carl-sagans-message-to-future-explorers-of-mars-will-cold+clock-you-right-in-the-touchy-feelies

<3

[Meho Krljic]

Međutim, nije sve tako ružičasto. Recimo, NASA je na svoj JuTjub kanal okačila snimak Kjuriositijevog spuštanja na Mars samo da bi nekoliko minuta kasnije snimak bio uklonjen jer je privatna televizijska stanica podnela prijavu zbog kršenja autorskih prava.    Stvari su kasnije sređene, ali kako u tekstu piše:

The video was gone, replaced with an alien message: "This video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds. Sorry about that." That is to say, a NASA-made public domain video posted on NASA's official YouTube channel, documenting the landing of a $2.5 billion Mars rover mission paid for with public taxpayer money, was blocked by YouTube because of a copyright claim by a private news service.

Pa, ima li boljeg primera u kakvom naopakom svetu živimo? 

[Gaff]

Curiosity Snaps its First Color Photo of Mars: Big Pic


http://news.discovery.com/space/big-pic-curiosity-color-photo-120807.html 

[Gaff]

Eto, svašta smo pobacali po Marsu!

CSI Mars

[Meho Krljic]

Eh... dok je Kjuriositi za sada uspešan, drugi NASA projekti nisu baš... Morfeus, recimo... koji je juče testiran i vidimo kako se to završilo:

Morpheus lander first free flight and failure in HD

Kao bizaran dodatni detalj, primetiti ogroman disklejmer od strane čoveka koji je aploudovao video, a u očiglednoj vezi sa onim što smo pominjali pre neki dan na ovom istom topiku.

[дејан]

Slow, but rugged, Curiosity's computer was built for Mars

The PowerPC RAD750 chip at the heart of the Curiosity Mars rover's central computer can withstand temperature extremes and massive doses of space radiation without the dreaded 'blue screen of death.'

[Meho Krljic]

E, sad, drugi se pitaju: može li se hakovati taj kompjuter? NASA je upravo uradila apdejt firmvera, dakle, u teoriji haker sa satelitskom antenčinom i pojačalom za signal od nekoliko stotina gigavata bi mogao Kjuriositiju da napravi dar mar. Naravno, ne verujem da bi to bio neko iz podruma, ali nekakvi zli Kinezi ili već tako neka nacija koja bi Americi da smrsi konce...

Could you hack into Mars rover Curiosity? 

NASA's Curiosity rover has now been on the surface of Mars for just over a week. It hasn't moved an inch after landing, instead focusing on orienting itself (and NASA's scientists) by taking instrument readings and snapping images of its surroundings. The first beautiful full-color images of Gale Crater are starting to trickle in, and NASA has already picked out some interesting rock formations that it will investigate further in the next few days (pictures below). Over the weekend and continuing throughout today, however, Curiosity is attempting something very risky indeed: A firmware upgrade.
As we covered last week, at the heart of Curiosity there is a computer that runs VxWorks — a popular embedded operating system that is installed in millions of devices around the world, including many spacecraft, aircraft, the Apple Airport Extreme, Drobo storage devices, and Honda's ASIMO robot. The VxWorks firmware on any of these systems, including Curiosity, can be updated at any time by uploading a new image and executing a few commands.
In the case of Curiosity, the new firmware was actually transmitted to the rover while it hurtled through space on its 8-month journey to Mars. On Saturday, Sol 5, NASA mission control transmitted the command that begun the update process. "We'll tell it to activate a sequence to start the load, then we go out of contact [with the rover] and it's gone for about eight hours," says Steve Scandore, a senior flight software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to Computerworld. "We start the upgrade. It will perform a series of steps and then it will turn itself off. It will wake itself up the next day and there's a down link to see what was done the day before." We should know later today if the upgrade process has been successful. Similar firmware upgrades have been performed before: Both the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers had their software updated in 2007 (both were powered by VxWorks), and Voyager 2, which is currently 9 billion miles from Earth, had its firmware fixed in 2010.

As for why NASA is executing the world's most risky firmware update on a computer that's 250 million miles away from Earth, get this: They're replacing Curiosity's operating system with a version that's more optimized for exploring the surface of Mars. At launch, Curiosity was loaded up with software that specialized in guiding the spacecraft to Mars and performing the complex EDL (entry, descent, landing) procedure. Now that Curiosity has landed, the guidance computer is no longer required — and so it's being replaced with software that improves autonomy; more powerful computer vision, pathfinding, instrument analysis, and so on.

Hacking Curiosity All of this led me to an interesting thought: What's to stop other people from sending firmware updates to Curiosity? There have been many examples of amateur (and possibly state) actors misusing orbiting satellites — so why should Curiosity be any different? The short answer is, it isn't.
In theory, Curiosity is hackable — and it wouldn't even be all that hard.

The first approach would involve the would-be hacker building the equivalent of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), a worldwide network of big-dish antenna that send and receive spacecraft signals, and perform radio astronomy. To perform uplink communications (to the rover), the DSN's biggest antennae — 230-feet (70-meter) dishes — are outfitted with transmitters that deliver up to 400 kilowatts of output power. The hacker would also have to replicate the exact same encoding scheme (probably QPSK, the same as satellite TV) and use the same frequency (X band, around 8GHz).
With enough careful observation of NASA's own transmissions, and full reverse engineering of the communication protocol and the rover's command format, a hacker could gain access to Curiosity with his own antenna. Realistically, though, this approach could only be pulled off by a well-funded terrorist group or state-funded agency.

A much easier approach would be to hack into NASA and use its infrastructure to take over Curiosity. In theory, you could break into mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and issue your own commands via the DSN antennae. Likewise, you could physically break into mission control and upload some new firmware (which, of course, like a generic action movie, you're carrying on a seemingly innocuous USB stick).
Back in March, NASA announced that it was the victim of 47 advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks, 13 of which gave Chinese hackers access to NASA's internal network [PDF]. In one case, the login credentials of 150 NASA employees were stolen, which could later be used to access other secure systems. In another attack, the hackers gained complete control of a NASA system, allowing them to delete or modify files, upload hacking tools, and modify system logs to conceal their actions.
In a separate incident, NASA had 48 "mobile computing devices" stolen between 2009 and 2011 — one of which contained International Space Station control codes. It isn't hard to see how these attack vectors could be combined to brick Curiosity, or block NASA's access.
The saving grace, I suppose, is that it isn't really in anyone's interest to interfere with Curiosity. The scientific data being gathered by Curiosity will benefit everyone — and indeed, the rover itself isn't 100% American, anyway: There are instruments on board that have been provided by other countries, such as Russia, Canada, and Spain. In all likelihood, the only real risk stems from China — but again, China is just as interested in Curiosity's findings as the rest of us.
In short, then, it's possible to hack Curiosity — but it would take more effort than it's worth. Once we actually get around to colonizing other planets, though — the great Imperial Space Race of the 31st century, or what have you — then I suspect sabotage will be much more likely. By then, I hope NASA will have stringent security measures in place, as I really don't want to end up drifting through space aboard a bricked spacecraft.

[Lord Kufer]

Zanimljiva panorama Marsa koju je snimio Curiosity, neko je skinuo s NASInog sajta, a NASA je posle posklanjala neke detalje.

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/111856

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread871593/pg1

[Josephine]

Ja ovde osim stenja ne vidim ništa drugo (osim puta) što se nazivima sličica-detalja implicira, što me je ponukalo da pomislim da je ovo običan predeo u nekom pustinjskom delu Zemlje.

[Lord Kufer]

Pogledaj ono helmet i bell

[Josephine]

Pa jeste, to su neke pravilnije forme... Ipak, sve je zamućeno? A može da bude i optička varka... Onaj put je, u stvari, najinteresantniji (meni, bar).

[Lord Kufer]

Ova reka

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00003/mcam/0003ML0000030000E1_DXXX.jpg

[Lord Kufer]

Panorama

http://www.360cities.net/image/mars-panoramic-from-curiosity-uncompressed-tiff-sol-3-color-images-the-world#-129.55,0.00,68.1

[Josephine]

Liči na reku. Zanimljivo...

[Lord Kufer]

Liči. Tamo je -80 najmanje, ustvari to je blizu polova, sigurno je još hladnije. Možda magla CO2 

[Ygg]

Šta se ovih dana sluša na Marsu?

Ever wondered what the first metal band played by the Curiosity rover on Mars would be? Wonder no more! On day 6 Anthrax became the first metal band played on Mars by Curiosity, when their 1990 track 'Got the Time' was played on the Martian surface as part of Mars rover Curiosity's daily wake-up playlist.

As Anthrax's Scott Ian put it: "yes, there will be moshing on Mars."

http://www.metalinjection.net/latest-news/fuck/anthrax-is-the-first-metal-band-blasted-on-mars



A evo i plej liste rovera Spirit i Opportunity:

http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/MER%20Soundtrack.html

[mac]

Prvi kamen koji je dobio laserom po površini ima svoj tvit nalog, https://twitter.com/N165Mars

[Meho Krljic]

Šta se ovih dana sluša na Marsu?

Ever wondered what the first metal band played by the Curiosity rover on Mars would be? Wonder no more! On day 6 Anthrax became the first metal band played on Mars by Curiosity, when their 1990 track 'Got the Time' was played on the Martian surface as part of Mars rover Curiosity's daily wake-up playlist.

Ali to je pesma Džoa Džeksona!!!!!!! Mislim, super je njihova verzija, ali zar Džo da ne dobije ni šautaut???

[Gaff]

Before-and-After Photos: Curiosity's Laser Burns Holes in Martian Rock

(via Wired)


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/before-and-after-chemcam/

[Lord Kufer]

Počeo je, dakle, Rat svetova 

[Lord Kufer]

Curiosity implications

[mac]

Dan na Marsu traje nekih 24 sata i 40 minuta. Ljudi koji opslužuju rover moraju da rade i žive u tom periodu, i imaju s tim u vezi posebne probleme. Evo intervjua sa jednim od njih:

http://io9.com/5940026/why-nasas-rover-team-lives-on-mars-time

[Meho Krljic]

Snow on Mars: NASA Spacecraft Spots 'Dry Ice' Snowflakes

A spacecraft orbiting Mars has detected carbon dioxide snow falling on the Red Planet, making Mars the only body in the solar system known to host this weird weather phenomenon.
   The snow on Mars fell from clouds around the planet's south pole during the Martian winter spanning 2006 and 2007, with scientists discovering it only after sifting through observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The Martian south pole hosts a frozen carbon dioxide — or "dry ice" — cap year-round, and the new discovery may help explain how it formed and persists, researchers said.
   "These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," lead author Paul Hayne, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide — flakes of Martian air — and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface."
   The find means Mars hosts two different kinds of snowfall. In 2008, NASA's Phoenix lander observed water-ice snow — the stuff we're familiar with here on Earth — falling near the Red Planet's north pole,. [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]
   Hayne and his team studied data gathered by MRO's Mars Climate Sounder instrument during the Red Planet's southern winter in 2006-2007. This instrument measures brightness in nine different wavelengths of visible and infrared light, allowing scientists to learn key characteristics of the particles and gases in the Martian atmosphere, such as their sizes and concentrations.
   The research team examined measurements the Mars Climate Sounder made while looking at clouds — including one behemoth 300 miles (500 kilometers) wide — from directly overhead, and from off to the side. These combined observations clearly revealed dry-ice snow falling through the Red Planet's skies, researchers said.
   "One line of evidence for snow is that the carbon-dioxide ice particles in the clouds are large enough to fall to the ground during the lifespan of the clouds," said co-author David Kass, also of JPL. "Another comes from observations when the instrument is pointed toward the horizon, instead of down at the surface."
   "The infrared spectra signature of the clouds viewed from this angle is clearly carbon-dioxide ice particles, and they extend to the surface," Kass added. "By observing this way, the Mars Climate Sounder is able to distinguish the particles in the atmosphere from the dry ice on the surface."
   Astronomers still aren't entirely sure how the dry ice sustaining Mars' south polar cap — the only place where frozen carbon dioxide exists year-round on the planet's surface — is deposited. It could come from snowfall, or the stuff may freeze out of the air at ground level, researchers said.
   "The finding of snowfall could mean that the type of deposition — snow or frost — is somehow linked to the year-to-year preservation of the residual cap," Hayne said.
   Dry ice requires temperatures of about minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 Celsius) to fall, reinforcing just how cold the Martian surface is.
   The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. Hayne performed the research while a postdoc at Caltech in Pasadena.

[Lord Kufer]

Ma oni traže zlato i naftu, kakva voda bre 

[Josephine]

hihihihi 

[Meho Krljic]

Lord Kufer je izgleda čitao Azzarellovog Spacemana!!!

[raindelay]

Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

HOUSTON — A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.
A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html

[Lord Kufer]

Nema ništa od toga dok se Vulkanci ne zateknu u blizini.
A treba da odradimo i III Svecki rat 

[Meho Krljic]

Curiosity Rover Touches 1st Martian Rock, Makes Longest Drive Yet 

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity reached out and touched a Martian rock with its huge robotic arm for the first time, then took off on its longest Red Planet drive to date.
Curiosity spent the past several days investigating a strange pyramid-shaped stone named "Jake Matijevic," testing out some of the gear at the end of its 7-foot-long (2.1 meters) arm. These tools include the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), which measures elemental composition, and the Mars Hand Lens Imager close-up camera, or MAHLI.
The rover performed these initial "contact science" operations on Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 22 and 23), researchers said. Photos snapped on those days show Curiosity's arm sidled up against "Jake Matijevic," with the arm's turret obscuring most of the 16-inch-tall (25 centimeters) rock.
"I did a science! 1st contact science on rock target Jake," the Curiosity team announced Saturday (Sept. 22) via the rover's Twitter feed @MarsCuriosity, which has more than 1.1 million followers. "Here's an action shot." [Curiosity Mars Rover: 11 Amazing Facts]
Curiosity also zapped "Jake Matijevic" with the laser on its ChemCam instrument, which reads rock composition from the vaporized bits. Comparing the results should help cross-calibrate the two instruments, researchers said.
The ChemCam work wrapped up Monday (Sept. 24), at which point Curiosity embarked on a 138-foot (42 m) drive — the longest one-day jaunt for the rover since it landed inside Mars' Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5.

Curiosity is making its way toward a site called Glenelg, which lies 1,300 feet (400 m) from the rover's touchdown site. Before Monday's drive, the mission team had said Curiosity was about halfway to Glenelg.
Scientists will likely soon begin looking for sandy areas to try out Curiosity's scooping system for the first time. The arm will deposit bits of Martian soil into the analytical instruments on the rover's body, which are known as SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) and CheMin (short for Chemistry & Mineralogy). 
[Related: Stunning photo shows rover tracks from space]
The first use of Curiosity's rock-boring drill, which also sits at the end of the rover's arm, will come sometime after that, researchers have said.
While team members are keen to see what Curiosity discovers at Glenelg, the $2.5 billion rover's main destination is the base of Mount Sharp. This odd mountain rises 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Red Planet sky from Gale Crater's center, and its foothills show signs of long-ago exposure to liquid water.
Those foothills lie about 6 miles (10 km) away from Curiosity's landing site. The rover — whose main task is to determine if the Gale area could ever have supported microbial life — may be ready to turn its wheels toward the interesting deposits near the end of the year, scientists have said.
The rock "Jake Matijevic" takes its name from Curiosity's surface operations systems chief engineer, who died Aug. 20 at the age of 64. Matijevic, who was based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., also worked on all three previous Mars rovers — Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity — NASA officials said.
Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

[scallop]

Važnije od ovog linka, a na njemu sam našao, je nastupanje pork-aggedon-a. 

[Meho Krljic]

Bre, robot se baškari na Marsu a ti uspevaš samo da misliš o slanini. Zastrašujuć primer adikcije!!!

[scallop]

Svaka budala ima svoje veselje.


Zamisli da šapa Radoznalca nije pipala vrh piramidice da bi pufnula u nju i očitala sastav, nego da je pokušala da je mrdne i ustanovi da li ispod tog vrška možda postoji prava piramida sa stargate prolazom za Universe. Jel' možeš da zamisliš? Ne možeš. A ja mogu da zamislim Slaninijadu sledeće godine u Kačarevu. "Briši iz mog sokaka kad ne znaš da sanjaš!" (Mika Antić - moj drug od pre 50 godina).

[Lord Kufer]

Sarmagedon zvuči još strašnije 

[scallop]

Biće i toga ako počnu da hrane krave kupusom.

[Melkor]

Remnants of Ancient Streambed on Mars

[Meho Krljic]

Argh 

Spidery black objects on Mars surface raise speculation

Someone alert Ziggy Stardust, there appear to be spiders on Mars.
Strange black objects seen from 200 miles above the surface of Mars are generating interest and speculation that the unidentified objects could be anything from geysers to sunbathing colonies of microorganisms.
NPR presents several photos of the objects, including one taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Jan. 27, 2010, that appears to show "little black flecks dotting the ridges, mostly on the sunny side, like sunbathing spiders sitting in rows."
The objects were first spotted in 1998. Interestingly, they appear when the surface of Mars begins to warm, showing up in the same location most of the time. And then when the Martian winter approaches, they disappear with the same precise regularity. The images have been brought into greater detail by Michael Benson in his book "Planetfall: New Solar System Visions."
Most scientists, including teams from the U.S. Geological Survey, Hungary and the European Space Agency, have their own theories, but the leading explanation is that the objects are geysers of CO2 exploding from underneath the planet's surface.
"If you were there, you'd be standing on a slab of carbon dioxide ice," Phil Christensen of Arizona State University told NPR. "All around you, roaring jets of carbon dioxide gas are throwing sand and dust a couple hundred feet into the air. The ground below would be rumbling. You'd feel it in your space boots."
And while the geyser theory is the most popular explanation, it has yet to be verified.
In the meantime, there are some interesting alternative theories, including one from a group of Hungarian scientists, who have speculated that the objects are actually colonies of photosynthetic Martian microorganisms that emerge each year to sunbathe in the warm weather.