Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Spirit Lands on Mars!

Episode Date: January 5, 2004

Follow the incredibly exciting and finally triumphant arrival on Mars of the Mars Exploration Rover as it happened at Wild About Mars, the Planetary Society's big weekend event at the Pasadena Convention Center.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Planetary Radio. Welcome everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan. What a weekend. I suppose you've heard the news. The Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit, has successfully landed on the surface of Mars. Like millions of other space enthusiasts around the world, I spent Saturday and Sunday, January 3 and 4, first in anxious anticipation and then in celebration.

Well over 2,000 of us gathered at the Pasadena Convention Center for Wild About Mars, the Planetary Society's way of making the rover landing an educational experience 2,000 of us gathered at the Pasadena Convention Center for Wild About Mars, the Planetary Society's way of making the rover landing an educational experience, an opportunity to be entertained by the likes of Ray Bradbury, John Rhys-Davies, and Bill Nye, a chance to applaud the engineers and scientists on the MER team, and a heck of a great party. Perhaps you joined us via the Society's very popular live webcast. In planning today's special show, we first thought about trying to capture the flavor of Wild About Mars. We quickly realized that nothing could top the incredibly tense few minutes

between Spirit's entry into the Martian atmosphere and confirmation that it was safe and sound in Gusev Crater. So that's what we're going to play for you today, followed by our What's Up visit with Bruce Betts and this week's trivia question. Actually, you'll hear much more of Bruce this week. He served as host of Wild About Mars. In the next 20 minutes or so, you'll hear Bruce on stage, where he was joined by Dr. Donna Shirley,

former manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Bruce and Donna provided helpful explanation and comments as we literally looked over the shoulders of everyone at the JPL Operations Center for the rover, thanks to a giant video screen. The pandemonium you'll periodically hear is generated by both the MER team at JPL and the standing room only crowd at the convention center. Now, let us take you back just a few days to this history in the making.

Spirit lander reporting that we are decelerating as expected. Current rate of deceleration on board spacecraft is expected to be 2.4 G's. Liberty detect acceleration tone number 4. Copy that. We expect that parachute deployment should occur in roughly 60 seconds. At this time, the on-board computer is busy looking at the vehicle's rate of deceleration to determine the proper time to deploy the parachute. This will occur about one minute from now once the vehicle is slowed to 1.7 times the speed of sound.

Liberty Tech, acceleration tone number 3. Vehicle decelerating nicely as expected. Over the next minute, the vehicle's rate of wobbling will gradually increase. This is a natural consequence of passing through the atmosphere at low supersonic speeds. Now 3 minutes 35 seconds after atmospheric entry. Just under 30 seconds to expect parachute deployment. Current altitude 45,000 feet. Current velocity 1,356 miles per hour.

Our current rate of deceleration is 1.1 G's. 1.0 G's. Expected parachute deploy in 10 seconds. Expected parachute deploy in 5 seconds. 4, 3, 2, 1, mark.

We're awaiting confirmation the parachute has deployed. Current altitude should be approximately 25,000 feet. Velocity 446 miles per hour. At this time, we expect the vehicle has gone subsonic, moving at a velocity of Mach 0.6, 304 miles per hour. We see a parachute. Parachute parachute was detected. Woo!

Telecom reporting the loss of lock followed by the rapid reacquisition indicates the parachute has deployed at near the expected time. Flight nav? The one-way doppler has stopped being received indicating that the BVR is walk-walk, which is consistent with parachute deploy having occurred a little bit later than the predicted parachute deploy time. Copy that.

Navigation reporting the parachute may have deployed slightly late. However, there is a 10-second uncertainty on this value. It's a sea-chill deploy event. Spacecraft reporting that the sea-chill has, in D-7, landed in separation. That has been detected. Spacecraft reporting that de-chill has indeed set up an inter-separation event as we detected. Spacecraft reporting lander is separated. We expect that radar will lock on the ground in approximately 5 seconds from now.

Kernel 2 to 8,000 feet. Moving at a speed of 173 miles per hour. We are near our terminal velocity. We expect that airbag should inflate approximately 25 seconds. The retro rocket should ignite in approximately 20 seconds from now. We have resolution 17. Space status confirmation.

Spacecraft is radar in lock. Spacecraft reporting that the radar is in lock and we have a good solution on the ground. Radar is working. Expected retro rocket ignition on my mark. Mark. Awaiting confirmation from the spacecraft that retro rocket ignition has occurred. At this point in time, we should be on the ground. We are now roughly 10 seconds from the latest expected landing time.

There is a dispersion landing time of plus or minus 30 seconds. So the latest expected landing is expected three seconds from now. So roughly any signal that we receive from now indicates the vehicle would be alive on the ground and bouncing. Stand by. They may or may not be able to receive communication from the spacecraft once it's landed, even if everything has gone well. 47 seconds from atmospheric entry.

Still awaiting signal that we are on the ground. We have six signs of bouncing on the surface. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!!!!! I'm not a part of the ground, but I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground. I'm not a part of the ground Thank you. The signal strength is currently intermittent. Oh, that's Tom Rivelini, who is the manager of the airbag landing system. We don't see a signal at the moment, right? No signal at the moment. We saw an intermittent signal that indicated we were bouncing. However, we currently do not have signal from the spacecraft. Please stand by. Stand by. We currently do not have signal from the spacecraft. Remember that bouncing and rolling is an event that could occur for another 10 minutes.

The spacecraft has to survive all the bounces for a landing case success. We currently do not have confirmation of signal. Communication possibilities after... The current status is that we had momentary signals after the landing event was expected to occur. We currently do not have a signal from the surface of Mars. We are currently looking at the telecom displays to try to reacquire the signal. Now, 8 minutes 39 seconds after landing, we expect that the vehicle should bounce and roll for another seven minutes. The vehicle could bounce and roll for up to a kilometer away from its initial

impact point. Well, that was a rush. Have you ever wondered what all those consoles are? Each console has a certain amount of information that's got all the analysis software necessary. So if, for instance, the radio guy sees something, he can tell you what condition the radio is in. Or if the power person, power woman sees something, they'll be able to analyze what they see so they can see if the power levels are correct.

able to analyze what they see so they can see if the power levels are correct. So all of those consoles are what the spacecraft uses to tell us how it's feeling, and also so that they can analyze the data to see if it's in within a couple of seconds. Canberra EDA is now, just to remind you, is doing one-second processing, so its noise score is very high. You can see it's not able to see anything lower than about 13 dB hertz. In about a minute or two, we'll begin doing longer integration times. That will drop the noise score down. We may see something at that time.

So this could be just an artifact of the way we're processing at the moment. Copy that, EDL, Cal. Oh, the guy in the middle with the jeans is Steve Squires. This is Mike. I'm Ray Alex. Steve Squires is the principal investigator for all the science on the mission. He was a student of Carl Sagan's. He's from Cornell. The guy in the red shirt is Sean O'Keefe, the administrator of NASA. MGS Mach, this is Flight on Mar-A-Opt.

Go ahead, Flight. Can you give me your current status, please? We are not quite yet able to say just how much data volume we're getting. Stand by, and I will let you know ASAP. Copy that. Thank you. The guy in the suit who's talking to Sean O'Keefe is Faruz Naderi, who's the program manager. He took my job when I left JPL as manager of the Mars Exploration Program.

So, again, even in a good situation, there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of communication at this point. And, in fact, some of it depends purely on probability eventually of how the lander first lands and orients and whether it's able to get a signal off, additional signal off to Earth before Earth appears to set as seen on Mars. There also should have been a lot of entry and descent data transmitted to Mars Global Surveyor, which will come back hopefully in something like 20 to 30 minutes from now. And then if nothing is heard directly from the spacecraft direct Earth, then there's probably a wait until the 1030-11, 1130 time frame

when Mars Odyssey orbiter will do an overflight of the lander and should be better poised to hear any signal or retrieve any data. The fellow in the blue shirt is Richard Cook, who is the mission design manager over all the whole program. And a minute ago you saw, well, see the guy at the far left with gray hair that is hugging somebody? That's Pete Teisinger, and he's the project manager for the whole Mars Exploration Rover project. Bring back any memories for you, Donna? Oh, yeah.

Mostly waiting. for you Donna? Oh yeah. Mostly waiting. Except that we didn't have on Pathfinder they didn't have any signals at all from the time that it threw off the back of the crew stage to the time it actually said I made it.

And there was just one there was a very small chance that we were actually going to hear the mom I made it signal that day on the 4th of July. But it happened to land just right. So it landed on the bottom with a little tiny stub antenna about this big sticking up. And all it did was go beep, basically. Here, they, and because the Mars Surveyor 98 mission failed and they didn't have any telemetry, any information coming back,

Surveyor 98 mission failed, and they didn't have any telemetry, any information coming back. They don't know why. They have a pretty good suspicion why it failed, but they don't know exactly. So for Mars Exploration Rovers, one of the main things that they did was to install all this telemetry so that you'd actually get these signals. We are 13 minutes, 48 seconds after entry into the Martian atmosphere, approximately eight minutes from expected touchdown point. We currently are still searching for a confirmation for a signal from Mars.

So all of the telemetry, even down to the time it hit, came back. But now if it's bouncing around, it could have landed in a position where the antennas, it's got all these airbags around it. They have to deflate the airbags, and then they have to open up the pedals. And it may not be until the airbags are deflated and the pedals are open that they'd be able to hear from it. So that's why it's taking so long because the configuration that it's in may or may not allow the antenna to actually broadcast back to one of the things that are going over.

When Mars Odyssey or Mars Global Surveyor go over, they can both hear at the frequency that the space... Go ahead, MGS Mach. I have some indication of greater than 240 kilobytes of MR data at this point, which may be indicative of reception after landing.

We'll have to wait about another four minutes to get this data back down. Copy that. Once we get the data down, we can confirm how much of that data is actually posted landing. Yeah, I think what they're saying

is that one of the orbiters going over, I couldn't tell which one, has gotten some sort of data, but they're going to have to wait another

few minutes before it gets the whole data package down and can tell them whether it's gotten down or not. Yeah, the guy on the lower left is Pete Tizinger, the project manager. The guy in the middle, I think, is Ed. Ed Weiler.

Thank you. We have a space science at NASA. Right. So soon you forgot. What does MR stand for? MR data. Do you know? When did they say that?

Yeah. landing. The vehicle should have rolled to a stop by now. The deep space network stations at Goldstone and Canberra are still searching for the signal. This is not necessarily on three minutes to first tones from the RLGA, and we're seven minutes from the tones on the PLGA. They may have said Mars Odyssey. I thought they were talking about one of the

orbiters. The fact that a tone has not yet been received is not necessarily cause for alarm, as during a bouncing and rolling event, it is extremely difficult to send signals back to Earth, and that there is sophisticated software being used here in the Flight Control Center to process this data. However, it takes a computer some time to catch up due to the intensity of the numerical computations in search for the signal. In roughly three minutes, the rover should transmit one of the electronic tones indicating that it is safely on the surface.

All right, because this is a smidge dramatic, I'm going to stick with this. Bill Hartman has generously agreed to be the guy who gets slipped around in the program, so we'll hold off on the Gusev crater discussion a little bit later for the landing site as we try to figure out how safe it is at the landing site. All right. Now just over two minutes from expected transmissions of tones from the surface. So unlike the movies, things don't happen exactly when they're supposed to or when you'd like for them to.

So you get to be in a real-life situation here, just like the people in the control room. So hang in there. A lot of these people were people who were on either Pathfinder or Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odyssey. So most of these folks have had this kind of experience before. Mark Adler. Hi, MGS Mark. I have positive confirmation of more than 240 kilobytes of MR data.

Woo-hoo! Mars is a camera. This is flight indicator. I'm not going to make anyone report on that. It's likely that Spiritland has successfully transmitted data to the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft during descent. MGS Mark, this is Flight. Standby, one. Copy.

I don't know why they're not celebrating. Now approximately one minute from expected transmission of semaphore tones from the surface. Okay, this is going to be the positive confirmation, if it comes. If it doesn't come... The deep space network tracking stations are still searching for the signal. Again, as mentioned earlier, it requires a lot of computer time to process these signals due to their weak nature and also the fact that the Earth is currently setting a scene from Mars. One of the interesting points about the data they're trying to get back from Mars Global Surveyor, which picked up this entry and descent data, hopefully, is that Mars Global Surveillance...

Flight MGS Mach? Flight MGS Mach. I have 16 frames in lock, receiver in lock. Earliest is at 04-24-57. Latest is at 04-28-57, which is considerably after the expected landing time. I'm still waiting to get the second chunk of data standby. Copy that. Let us know when it's in the queue to get the JPL. Copy, absolutely. Dr. Mike Malin reporting that the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft may have received data from the Spirit Lander

after expected landing time. That would be a very good sign. So related to this, the data they're bringing back is actually going into the camera data bin on Mars Global Surveyor, which is why you're hearing Mike Malin reported in this. Mike Malin, the builder of the Mars Orbiter camera. As a point of interest, during the entry-descent landing sequence, the Spirit Lander reported back to Earth that it believed that its drop velocity towards the surface was approximately 65 meters per second, and the horizontal velocity was less than 10 meters per second. Could you verify the broadcast channels that the UHS data will come out on, please?

The broadcast channels for the UHS real-time data is MER-A to SP-4. UHS recorded is MER-A test B4. UHF recorded is MER-A test B5. Copy that. All patients, this is flight. Station calling flight. That was me probably, flight. I have confirmation from Stanford that they saw the signal from the rover for up to 12 minutes. Copy that.

They said a couple minutes. They're not very accurate in their timekeeping, but they saw it for a lot longer than it would have been just the descent part. Copy that. Thank you. Also, with that... This is Blank. Please switch over your DMDs I'm prepared for UHF data

on MER-A TIS-B4 The on Pathfinder UHF tracking antenna at Stanford University reporting that it may have seen a signal from the rover at a time in which the rover should have been on the ground

Deep Space Network tracking stations in Canberra and Goldstone are still They have seen a signal from the rover at a time at which the rover should have been on the ground. Deep Space Network tracking stations in Canberra and Goldstone are still searching for the primary signal. On Pathfinder, the only way to get a signal back was directly from Mars to Earth. These can go through both Odyssey and The Odyssey. Thank you. How many of these did Rob Hennig survive? Rob was the mission manager during Pathway. Okay, all stations. All stations. All stations. All stations.

We have a little confirmation. We'll let that go. Thank you. The happiest scientist on the planet. Hey! All stations, this is Sprite. We have UHF data coming across on B4. Whew! All right. Flight MGS Mach.

Go MGS Mark. I assume you see your data on VDOM. Thank you very much, and this is beautiful. The preliminary indication shows that we had 29 frames in lock, receiver, synchronizer, and VTURB. The earliest was at 04-24-57. The earliest was at 04-24-57. The latest was at 04-32-25. We're very good. We still have a very strong signal, however.

Flight 814 has carrier in lock. We have carrier in lock. All right. We have a lock on the signal. Goldstone has the carrier signal in lock from the rover. The airbag covers are still inflated. We expect that the airbag retraction should start in approximately two minutes from now. It's another biggie. Is everybody happy? We're happy! Yet another what's up on location.

Bruce Betts, who has just, well, not exactly just, maybe an hour ago, come away from the podium at Wild About Mars, just completed here at the Pasadena Convention Center. Heck of a show. Incredible. Incredible. It would have been incredible no matter what happened, but with just a perfect mission, everything going so well, having a sellout crowd at the Pasadena Convention Center,

over 2,000 people live, lots on a webcast to witness the landing of Spirit. Unbelievable. How cool to be part of something like this. Big screen, 2,000 people coming out and jumping up and down, synchronized with the scientists at JPL, the scientists and engineers behind Spirit. There they were live on the big screen jumping up and down, and everybody was here too. The drama was followed by great jubilation. It was incredible. It was incredible.

And also we had a number of great speakers, celebrities, guests, exhibits. Incredible. Well, we'll move on to What's Up, which is going to be just as exciting this week. What have you got for us? What's up? Wait. Oh, that's that show we do. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

A little tired. Okay. Yeah, well, let's see. This week in space history, this really cool rover Spirit is going to drive around on Mars in Gusev Crater. It's going to be great. Random space fact! Gusev is a crater on Mars. There's a rover in it right now It's going to be great. Random Space Fact! Gusev is a crater on Mars. There's a rover in it right now that's going to drive around.

You're really tired, aren't you? You want to go home. Are we done yet? We should say Bruce was basically the boss man of Wild About Mars and was on stage more than anybody else because you were pretty much our host, our moderator, too. So you've earned the right to go home. Yeah, I wouldn't let other people on stage.

And he literally kicked other people in the stomach down the steps. Yeah. Battling with Gimli the dwarf. You can make those. Guy with the axe. You were fearless. Now you let lots of other people on stage. All good folks.

But let's bring this around. What's next? Are we up to trivia? We are, aren't we? We are. We are up to trivia. But let's bring this around. What's next? Are we up to trivia? We are, aren't we? We are. We are up to trivia. So let's do last week's trivia question, which is on the Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft. What is a rad motor, and how many does each spacecraft have?

What did we do? What did we get? Radical dude. We got some great responses. I'm stealing Biff's lines, but we got a few. I fell a little down this week, I'll be honest, and I think it was because of the holiday. But we did get this one, the winning one, from Barry Olson in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Barry, congratulations.

You're a winner. The answer, of course, Bruce, was? Rocket Assistedisted descent motor. These are the motors that fire shortly before the big ball of airbags is going to hit the ground because it's still going too fast to hit safely. So there are these three motors that fire rockets to slow it basically to a dead stop in midair about, I believe, 40 feet above the surface. And then it drops and bounces along as Spirit did.

And anybody who gets a chance to see the amazing Dan Moss animation, the visualization, will get to see this in action. It was just an incredible thing. And, of course, he was here, and we showed his video. Anyway, Barry, you're going to be the first winner of the fantastic new prize that we're going to be giving away on Planetary Radio, and that is a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Can you contain yourself? Yay! I've got to say, when we brought these out, Matt really actually could not contain himself. I was thrilled. I'm still thrilled.

It's a good time. It's the new contest prize, so come compete for it. This week's trivia question, we're going to stick with letters on the Spirit Rover for $1,000. Except it's not really for $1,000. It's for a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Anyway, on the Spirit Rover, there's an instrument on the robotic arm that is called the APXS. There was also an APXS on the Sojourner Rover. However, one of those letters stands for a different word on this rover.

Which letter is it? What was the word before, and what is it now? I'm sorry. I think I lost you back there at new trivia question for this week. No, okay. How could people enter? Well, first you're going to want to replay that so you can hear what the question is or read it on our website as Matt tries to figure out what the question was.

Then go to planetary.org slash radio. Follow the links Planetary Radio. Enter our contest. Learn all sorts of things about the Spirit landing, the Spirit rover. Check in with interviews with Spirit people. Check in with Biff Starling, the first astrobot on Mars. How about that, Biff? Whoa, dude.

Now, we have one special guest that we can go to just before we finish. We have maybe a minute left. Yes, we've had him on the show before. His name is Daniel. And Daniel helped out tonight. Daniel, you picked out the person who won a telescope tonight. Yeah, I did. How did you do that?

Well, it was really just, that was easy. They were little pieces of paper with people's names on them. And you picked out the winner. Yeah. You just reached in. You didn't know which one you were going to get you picked out the winner. Yeah. You just reached in. You didn't know which one you were going to get. You just grabbed one. Yeah.

Nice job. Thanks for the help. Bye. Thank you very much. Thank you. One last question. Daniel, did you enjoy the Mars landings? Yes, I did.

Thanks, Matt. Did you have a good time? I had a wonderful time. I had a wonderful time. I had a wonderful time. This was a great thing to be a part of. And now it's over. They're picking up the chairs. Time to say goodnight. Goodnight, and everybody look up in the night sky.

Look for Mars. It's up there in the evening sky. And think about the Spirit Rover, freshly sitting on the surface. And think about Biff Starling, astronaut extraordinaire, exploring the surface of Mars, only the fourth place we've ever seen. First place Biff Starling, astronaut extraordinaire, exploring the surface of Mars. Only the fourth place we've ever seen. First place Biff's ever seen. Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society.

And the host of Wild About Mars, where we are wrapping up at the Pasadena Convention Center. Thank you all for tuning in this week, and we hope you'll join us again next week for the next edition of Planetary Radio.