[宇航科技] Honeywell products play part in successful Mars landing

YapingXin 2012-08-07 03:00:52

http://in.honeywell.com/sites/aero/Aerospace%20News/Pages/HoneywellproductsplaypartinsuccessfulMarslanding.aspx

The successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and its Curiosity rover on Monday, Aug. 6, culminated in shouts of satisfaction and even a few tears from employees across Honeywell who helped contribute products to the mission.

Several Aerospace locations contributed project content, including ka-band terminal descent sensor antennas from Norcross, Ga.; a miniature inertial measurement unit (MIMU) from Clearwater , Fla.; which contains ring laser gyros from Minneapolis and accelerometers from Redmond, Wash.; and radiation hardened electronics from Plymouth, Minn. Visit Nasa’s website for videos and more information.

“I was holding my breath and then cheering as loudly as those on TV,” said Sharon Coogan, MIMU Project Manager in Clearwater, “and I still find myself getting a little teary-eyed. How many people can say they’ve been part of a product that’s gone across a solar system and touched another planet? It’s such a privilege.”

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover are on a mission to gather information that NASA hopes will help determine whether the planet ever did, or could now, sustain life. About the size of a mid-size car, the rover contains 10 instruments ranging from a weather station to a chem cam to assist its mission findings.

Success of the mission wasn’t assured, with even NASA portraying the final landing sequence as “seven minutes of terror” before touchdown on the Mars surface. With Honeywell’s ka-band antennas a critical part of the terminal descent sensor that guided the MSL to the Mars surface, the final result been jubilation in Norcross, according to Bill Hafner, Sr. Sales Manager.

“It’s great news. Everyone is excited,” said Hafner. “We had six antennas on there and they performed as expected.”

“There’s a sense of relief and a sense of satisfaction,” added David Popelka, Product Director of RADAR and Space Flight, who noted the site has been involved in two other Mars missions. “It’s been a good program for us and we’ve received a lot of accolades from JPL when the antennas have been delivered.”

Work on Honeywell’s content has spanned several years. The antenna contract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for example, was awarded in October 2006.

“With the time constant being so long on these projects, we do the work and then it’s years before we see it come to fruition,” Coogan said. “It’s very satisfying when we see it all works.”

Pictured above:
NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover. Curiosity and its parachute are in the center of the white box; the inset image is a cutout of the rover stretched to avoid saturation. The rover is descending toward the etched plains just north of the sand dunes that fringe "Mt. Sharp." From the perspective of the orbiter, the parachute and Curiosity are flying at an angle relative to the surface, so the landing site does not appear directly below the rover.

The parachute appears fully inflated and performing perfectly. Details in the parachute, such as the band gap at the edges and the central hole, are clearly seen. The cords connecting the parachute to the back shell cannot be seen, although they were seen in the image of NASA's Phoenix lander descending, perhaps due to the difference in lighting angles. The bright spot on the back shell containing Curiosity might be a specular reflection off of a shiny area. Curiosity was released from the back shell sometime after this image was acquired.

This view is one product from an observation made by HiRISE targeted to the expected location of Curiosity about one minute prior to landing. It was captured in HiRISE CCD RED1, near the eastern edge of the swath width (there is a RED0 at the very edge). This means that the rover was a bit further east or downrange than predicted.

The image scale is 13.2 inches (33.6 centimeters) per pixel .

HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.

Image and caption credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

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