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A comment on Curiosity landing is in a week. Parent comment

Re:Curiosity landing is in a week by ricardobeat on Sunday July 29, 2012 @03:47PM (#4309477)
They drive at mm/s speeds. Moving over a few meters because the soil is stirred up is a huge waste of energy and time, not to mention the risk of failure.
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Re:Curiosity landing is in a week by mturmon on Sunday July 29, 2012 @04:54PM (#4309698)
No, not for curiosity. That robot is expected to drive many kms as part of its planned activities. Its nominal speed is 30 m per hour.
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Re:Curiosity landing is in a week by dredmorbius on Sunday July 29, 2012 @06:48PM (#4310035)
Which is 120 mm/sec -- about 4.75 inches, as parent noted.
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Re:Curiosity landing is in a week by mturmon on Monday July 30, 2012 @12:05AM (#4310856)
Actually, 30 m/hour is 8 mm/sec. But that's a bad choice of units, because seconds is not a good mission time scale.

The point is that, within a couple of hours, you can drive beyond the contamination radius. And, over the span of the mission, you most certainly will.

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Re:Curiosity landing is in a week by dredmorbius on Monday July 30, 2012 @12:56AM (#4310981)
Correct. Not sure where my math went bad.
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