The two-yearly Le Bourget Air & Space show has opened today just outside Paris.
I will be there next saturday, looking forward to seeing some interesting unmanned spacecraft (in addition of course to a lot of airplanes including some on which I worked)
Anatoly Zak has already placed some pictures taken at Le Bourget today on his site http://www.russianspaceweb.com/lebourget2009/index.htm
Note in particular the German Mona Lisa moon lander, that was already there two years ago and a small model of the latest version of Fobos Grunt.
Full Version: Le Bourget 2009
MSL (real size mock-up) is
wow!
Unless that man is very short, the mast seems taller than I thought. That will give us better views of wherever Curiosity lands.
"Note in particular the German Mona Lisa moon lander"
Fascinating picture... for all the wrong reasons. Why do people design things like this? We've known for centuries that three legs are stable and four are not - check out the wobbly tables in any eating establishment! And such a high centre of gravity - it would be unstable on any serious slope. Consider the landings of Surveyors 3 and 5 - three bounced twice down a crater wall, and five skidded down a small, steep crater wall. Mona Lisa would fail in either situation. But Surveyor was a tripod with widely splayed footpads and a low centre of gravity, and it was a very robust design.
Phil
Fascinating picture... for all the wrong reasons. Why do people design things like this? We've known for centuries that three legs are stable and four are not - check out the wobbly tables in any eating establishment! And such a high centre of gravity - it would be unstable on any serious slope. Consider the landings of Surveyors 3 and 5 - three bounced twice down a crater wall, and five skidded down a small, steep crater wall. Mona Lisa would fail in either situation. But Surveyor was a tripod with widely splayed footpads and a low centre of gravity, and it was a very robust design.
Phil
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Jun 17 2009, 08:55 AM) 
Fascinating picture... for all the wrong reasons. Why do people design things like this? We've known for centuries that three legs are stable and four are not
Or if you're procuring office chairs on casters, five are stable and four are a huge liability concern.
A selection of my le Bourget pictures
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