Comments on: Mars Curiosity photo size and cameras explained

By: KISS

KISS — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 05:23:00 +0000

”
We also looked at a 4MP sensor but it would have run around half as fast. And the state of CMOS sensors wasn’t credible in 2004.”
so there’s the problem right there NASA are commissioning known antiquated kit from the start, instead of adding the latest and greatest kit far closer to the launch date and including more meshed deep space high bandwidth routes home with every single mission out there.

surely it makes sense to add a far newer super high def (in this 2012/17 case) core cam that’s been tested on a ongoing basis , hell even make a space for a few generic microsatellite deployment system sized devices in the fuel calculations and put your latest and greatest commercial devices for added luck and hope they work when they get down as an extra bonus….

adding a secondary commercial grade independent wireless mesh microsatellite sized deployment sat system would be a very good start for carrying far more data , im sure earths commercial entities would develop and pay their part NASA offered to carry these microsatellite sized far higher data-rate wireless meshes to the planets and deploy them in orbit for everyone’s deep space communications relay benefit

By: Derp

Derp — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Actually, no. Curiosity transmits 31.25 megaBYTES over 24 hours. So 1.3 MB/h.

By: megachirops

megachirops — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:24:00 +0000

“The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 500 bits per second to
32,000 bits per second (roughly half as fast as a standard home modem).
The data rate to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is selected
automatically and continuously during communications and can be as high
as 2 million bits per second. The data rate to the Odyssey orbiter is a
selectable 128,000 or 256,000 bits per second (4-8 times faster than a
home modem).

An orbiter passes over the rover and is in the vicinity of the sky to
communicate with the rover for about eight minutes at a time, per sol.
In that time, between 100 and 250 megabits of data can be transmitted to
an orbiter. That same 250 megabits would take up to 20 hours to
transmit direct to Earth! The rover can only transmit direct-to-Earth
for a few hours a day due to power limitations or conflicts with other
planned activities, even though Earth may be in view much longer.”

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/communicationwithearth/data/

By: Mark Parker

Mark Parker — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:53:00 +0000

” We wanted to be able to capture high frame rates, particularly with the descent camera.”

Amazing as it may be to see the descent, I think most people would have preferred twice the megapixels of normal photos at the expense of just the ‘descent’.

By: Alasdair

Alasdair — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:40:00 +0000

Trying to compare this with something I can relate to…

In the days of 56k modems, I believe my maximum download was 20M per hour. At 250M over 24 hours, this connection to Curiosity is about 1/2 of that.

Not making any judgements about the speed, just trying to get a handle on it.