NASA’s official logo is known as the “meatball”. I’m guessing it has to do with the many NASA meatball administrative moves over the years (in contrast to the excellence of most of its engineering and science). NASA has another logo known as the “worm” – again a nod to those magnificent administrators I’m guessing.
[I’m a rocketman]
The United States is the only country thus far that has been able to put a spacecraft on the surface of Mars. To date, it has done it 6 times – 3 soft landings (2 Viking craft in 1976 and the Phoenix lander in 2008) and 3 “hard” landings on bouncing airbags (Pathfinder in 1997 and 2 Mars Exploration Rovers in 2004).
Are you ready?
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Sorry for the jingoism but the reality is that to pitch an object out of Earth orbit, have it travel some 50 million miles (give or take depending on planet positions), and have this package end up on the Martian surface intact and in good working order (the really important part!) is pretty damned tough. How tough? Well, so tough that the engineers on these projects use those hardened, grave, macho-sounding acronyms that are a left-over from the test pilot days of NASA’s Mercury Program.
The key acronym for us is EDL. That is: “Entry, Descent, & Landing.” That’s:
- Entry into the (Martian) atmosphere,
- Descent through the (Martian) atmosphere, and finally
- Landing on the (Martian) surface.
It’s an incredibly complex process as you might imagine and the real kicker is Continue Reading
viewsaskew 