Sunday, August 5, 2012

Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover) on Mars and sending pictures.


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NASA's Curiosity rover scores touchdown on Mars

After 8 months of flight, spacecraft survives '7 minutes of terror' and lands safely

By Alan BoyleScience editor
PASADENA, Calif. — After eight years of planning and eight months of interplanetary travel, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory pulled off a touchdown of Super Bowl proportions, all by itself.
The spacecraft plunged through Mars' atmosphere, fired up a rocket-powered platform and lowered the car-sized, 1-ton Curiosity rover to its landing spot in 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) Gale Crater. Then the platform flew off to its own crash landing, while Curiosity sent out a text message basically saying, "I made it!"
That message was relayed by the orbiting Mars Odyssey satellite back to Earth. A radio telescope in Australia picked up the message and sent it here to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the blips of data appeared on the screens at JPL's mission control, the room erupted in cheers and hugs.
Because of the light-travel time between Mars and Earth, throngs of scientists and engineers — along with millions who were monitoring the action via television and the Internet — celebrated Curiosity's landing 14 minutes after it actually occurred.
Even the engineers who drew up the unprecedented plan for the landing admitted that it looked crazy. But the plan actually worked.
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MARS Science Laboratory

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First Images from Curiosity Rover on Mars

  • By Adam Mann
    •   
  • August 6, 2012 |  
  • 1:55 am
This is one of the first images taken by NASA’s rover, Curiosity. Taken with the rover’s Hazcam cameras, the image shows rocks, dust, and the rover’s shadow on the surface of Mars

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There are more images at JPL but folks copying may hinder viewing.
- LRK -

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Curiosity Lands on Mars

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 10:32:54 PM PDT

NASA's Curiosity rover has landed on Mars! Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface. Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the "sky crane" maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way. The time of day at the landing site is mid-afternoon -- about 3 p.m. local Mars time at Gale Crater. The time at JPL's mission control is about 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT).
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Great job!.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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