NASA Restarts Work To Support Europe's Uncrewed Trip To Mars After Years of Setbacks (engadget.com) 23
NASA has revived support for the European Space Agency's long-delayed Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission. According to the space agency, the current plan is to launch via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy no earlier than 2028. Engadget reports: This is a partnership between NASA and the ESA, with the European agency providing the rover, the spacecraft and the lander. The US will provide braking engines for the lander, heater units for the rover's internal systems and, of course, assistance with the actual launch.
The rover will be outfitted with scientific instruments to look for signs of ancient life on the red planet. These include a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer and an organic molecule analyzer, which will come in handy as the vehicle collects samples at the Oxia Planum landing site. The mission has been stuck in development limbo since 2001, with delays caused by budget problems, technical issues, shifting international partners, and geopolitical fallout. After NASA dropped out, Russia stepped in, then was cut loose after invading Ukraine, and now -- despite NASA rejoining in 2024 and fresh political budget threats -- the rover is tentatively back on track for a 2028 launch.
The rover will be outfitted with scientific instruments to look for signs of ancient life on the red planet. These include a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer and an organic molecule analyzer, which will come in handy as the vehicle collects samples at the Oxia Planum landing site. The mission has been stuck in development limbo since 2001, with delays caused by budget problems, technical issues, shifting international partners, and geopolitical fallout. After NASA dropped out, Russia stepped in, then was cut loose after invading Ukraine, and now -- despite NASA rejoining in 2024 and fresh political budget threats -- the rover is tentatively back on track for a 2028 launch.
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https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
First known use - 1853
Fuck you, misogynist.
Re: "Unmanned" is the word you meant (Score:3, Interesting)
The natural antonym of unmanned is manned.
The natural antonym of uncrewed is crewed.
"Crewed" sounds identical to "crude" in every accent of English I am aware of.
And it has always sounded dumb for a premier space agency to speak of "crude missions" to anywhere.
Doubly so when some of the most famous words uttered by said agency's astronauts were "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Only the pathologically offended or the pathologically misogynistic would interpret that statement to apply to
Re: "Unmanned" is the word you meant (Score:1)
Clarity of communication is a very important part of any human undertaking, especially so for technically difficult things like spaceflight where precision to seven or eight decimal places is the bare minimum for numerical quantities and ambiguity in written or verbal communication can be the difference between success and failure for machines and life and death for people.
I wouldn't say that politically-mandated homophones are innocuous here. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
If we are mature enough as hum
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Fuck you, hateful misandrist cunt.
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Congratulations, *you* are the one they hate.
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Fuck the manhaters.
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Troll is a good rating for you. The real question is why are you even here? Nothing about the mission - you seem to have carefully read this, desperate to find something to be insulted about.
Are you being paid, and have to report how many posts to social media/websites you make? Or hope to be paid? Or are you just that desperate to have someone, anyone, talk to you, even if it's just yelling?
And btw, you could say the Soviet launch of Laika, the space dog, in 1957, was crewed.
How come NASA is in the headline? (Score:2)
US will provide braking engines for the lander, heater units for the rover's internal systems and, of course, ...
Free toilet paper for all the ESA engineers working on the project.
Okie dokie, but ... (Score:3)
Just make sure everyone is using the same units [wikipedia.org] ...
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Nevertheless, the US still has the highest percentage of successful missions to Mars, compared to organizations and countries with all-metric programs.
Funny, that.
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Nevertheless, the US still has the highest percentage of successful missions to Mars, compared to organizations and countries with all-metric programs.
Funny, that.
According to the below, generally, yes, but mathematically, no. The U.S. has the highest number of attempts and percentage of successful missions - given a multitude of missions, but China, India, and the UAE all have a 100% success rate. I can't imagine using Imperial over Metric factors into the success rate, especially considering the even the U.S. generally uses Metric for this kind of thing.
I haven't verified this, but according to the bot answer in What is the success rate of the Mars mission o [quora.com]
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Dumb question... why doesn't the ESA work with SpaceX directly to launch, instead of adding NASA bureaucrazy to the mix?
Re: ESA - nice fuzzy & warm concept, disaster (Score:1)
Probably because they can't afford to pay for the launch themselves.
I'm spitballing here but I'd guess a launch to mars requires a falcon heavy fully expendable...something like $200m or more?
Rounding error if you're the US military and even NASA but not so much if you're ESA with 1/3 the budget of NASA.
They may also need to use the DSN. Not sure if ESAs network has the same 360 degree coverage in longitude as NASA does.
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Explanation at "Mars Exploration Joint Initiative" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] In 2010 the NASA and the ESA had Mars ambitions but limited budgets so they decided to merge their scientific programmes and work on a single mission. Each of them provided what they had at hand.
Also, introducing NASA bureaucracy is a feature. The modus operandi of these agencies is cooperation.
Look on the bright side. (Score:2)
With the ESA supplying the spacecraft, most of the software is likely to be competently written and/or open-source. This will prove to the Martians that there is indeed intelligent life on Earth.
Is Mars approaching? (Score:2)
Is Mars getting near Earth? I seem to remember that there is a window of opportunity for these trips, and then the planets separate and trips become more difficult. Perhaps that is the reason for the revival.