Curiosity Rover Lands Safely on Mars

[pauldun170]

PASADENA, Calif. — In a flawless, triumphant technological tour de force, a plutonium-powered rover the size of a small car was lowered at the end of 25-foot-long cables from a hovering rocket stage onto Mars early on Monday morning.

The rover, called Curiosity, ushers in a new era of exploration that could turn up evidence that the Red Planet once had the necessary ingredients for life — or might even still harbor life today. NASA and administration officials were also quick to point to the success to counter criticism that the space agency had turned into a creaky bureaucracy incapable of matching its past glory.

“If anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of U.S. leadership in space,” John P. Holdren, the president’s science adviser, said at a news conference following the landing, “well, there’s a one-ton, automobile-size piece of American ingenuity, and it’s sitting on the surface of Mars right now.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/sc...y-on-mars.html

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars...os-120816.html

[pauldun170]

new thread created

[derf]

This is pretty awesome, I was play nd with their interactive lander last night and it is nuts how much can go wrong

[Homeslice]

So it was lowered from only 25 ft? Why not just finish the landing and then do it, lol.

Also, does anyone really believe that if they ever discovered life (or former life), that they would actually release the news?

[EpyonXero]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

So it was lowered from only 25 ft? Why not just finish the landing and then do it, lol.

Also, does anyone really believe that if they ever discovered life (or former life), that they would actually release the news?

I think they would. They announced the space bacteria they thought they found back in the 90's.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by EpyonXero

I think they would. They announced the space bacteria they thought they found back in the 90's.

I think I remember that, but it wasn't very conclusive, was it?

[EpyonXero]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

I think I remember that, but it wasn't very conclusive, was it?

I remember they were sure enough that President Clinton did a press conference about it but I think it got debunked or something, Im not 100% sure.

[Particle Man]

Originally Posted by EpyonXero

I remember they were sure enough that President Clinton did a press conference about it but I think it got debunked or something, Im not 100% sure.

"I...

did not...

have sexual relations...

with that space bacteria!"

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

So it was lowered from only 25 ft? Why not just finish the landing and then do it, lol.

Also, does anyone really believe that if they ever discovered life (or former life), that they would actually release the news?

There are basically three ways to land a spacecraft on Mars, which has an atmosphere one percent of the density of Earth's. Reentry shields and parachutes work to slow down the spacecraft, but not nearly as well as they do on Earth.

The Viking probes used rockets to slow the spacecraft in the air and lower them gently to the Martian surface. The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, used a similar system to suspend them 10 to 15 meters above the surface. They then popped giant airbags and fell the rest of the way.

Curiosity's landing system worked much the same way as its predecessors' down to a few tens of meters above the surface. To begin, a giant 4.5m aerodynamic heat shield, the largest ever flown in space, slowed the spacecraft down to about 470 meters per second. That was slow enough for Curiosity's 16m incredibly strong, supersonic parachute to pop out and slow Curiosity down further to about 100 meters per second—better, but still pretty fast.

At that point, about 1.8 kilometers above the ground, the parachute was cut loose, and the descent stage's rockets began firing. During this time, Curiosity began to unfold. The rockets lowered the craft down to only 7.6 meters above the surface, just a few stories. So far, very similar to previous probes, except much larger.

But at 900kg, Curiosity was much too large to drop to the surface using giant airbags. Instead, it was lowered to the surface using cables from the descent stage. Once landed, explosive bolts detached the cables and the "skycrane" sped away to land well out of the way.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/...lands-on-mars/

[EpyonXero]

Take that China!