Curiosity Lands on Mars

[Harlequin Dreamer]

How much money has the world wasted on wars and other BS? If that money had been spent on space exploration instead, we would have been living on Mars and Venus by now.

BTW well done to NASA!

Thats true we have wasted but we would probably be at war with them by now. Anyway well done to the folks at nasa & around the world who helped this to happen can't wait to see the pic's & info that curiosity starts sending back.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

we would have been living on Mars and Venus by now.

Mars maybe but Venus no way. We haven't been able to design anything that can survive for much more than 2 hours there.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Some more details about the landing:

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NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1047/673476mainmsl3226.jpg

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation.

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing ever attempted on Mars, including the final severing of the bridle cords and flyaway maneuver of the rocket backpack.

"Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover ever built, is now on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will seek to answer age-old questions about whether life ever existed on Mars -- or if the planet can sustain life in the future," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "This is an amazing achievement, made possible by a team of scientists and engineers from around the world and led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA and our Jet Propulsion Laboratory. President Obama has laid out a bold vision for sending humans to Mars in the mid-2030's, and today's landing marks a significant step toward achieving this goal."

Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.

"The Seven Minutes of Terror has turned into the Seven Minutes of Triumph," said NASA Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld. "My immense joy in the success of this mission is matched only by overwhelming pride I feel for the women and men of the mission's team."

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3212/673502maincheering43226.jpg

Curiosity returned its first view of Mars, a wide-angle scene of rocky ground near the front of the rover. More images are anticipated in the next several days as the mission blends observations of the landing site with activities to configure the rover for work and check the performance of its instruments and mechanisms.

"Our Curiosity is talking to us from the surface of Mars," said MSL Project Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The landing takes us past the most hazardous moments for this project, and begins a new and exciting mission to pursue its scientific objectives."

Confirmation of Curiosity's successful landing came in communications relayed by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and received by the Canberra, Australia, antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental composition of rocks from a distance. The rover will use a drill and scoop at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information on the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity And http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-6278 / 818-393-9011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

2012-230

Source

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Just out of curiosity do you know if there are more of those type pics?

That is, is that the only one taken during descent? Would love to see them.

It looks as if this was the only image MRO took of Curiosity during it's descent. No doubt it will image the rover on the ground of the coming days and weeks.

Here is the NASA article about this image:

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NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona › Full image and caption › Curiosity latest images › Latest videos

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9339/673731mainpia1597843226.jpg

PASADENA, Calif. – An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 meter) parachute as it descended towards its landing site at Gale Crater.

"If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."

The image of Curiosity on its parachute can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15978b.html

The image was taken while MRO was 211 miles (340 kilometers) away from the parachuting rover. Curiosity and its rocket-propelled backpack, contained within the conical-shaped back shell, had yet to be deployed. At the time, Curiosity was about two miles (three kilometers) above the Martian surface.

"Guess you could consider us the closest thing to paparazzi on Mars," said Milkovich. "We definitely caught NASA's newest celebrity in the act."

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/7355/673740mainpia1598143226.jpg

Curiosity, NASA's latest contribution to the Martian landscape, landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 on Aug. 6, EDT) near the foot of a mountain three miles tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles in diameter.

In other Curiosity news, one part of the rover team at the JPL continues to analyze the data from last night's landing while another continues to prepare the one-ton mobile laboratory for its future explorations of Gale Crater. One key assignment given to Curiosity for its first full day on Mars is to raise its high-gain antenna. Using this antenna will increase the data rate at which the rover can communicate directly with Earth. The mission will use relays to orbiters as the primary method for sending data home, because that method is much more energy-efficient for the rover.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance. Later in the mission, the rover will use a drill and scoop at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance to layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

For more information on the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and the Mars Exploration Rover Project are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter. For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-5011

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown/Steve Cole 202-358-1726/202-358-0918

NASA Headquarters, Washington

Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / Stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

2012-232

Source

[+DieChecker]

No sign of Decepticons yet??

Very cool mission. "The size of a car"... I don't think most people realize how big this thing is.

A working Plutonium battery is a good precident for sending a rover to Europa, and being able to melt down to the water under the ice crust.

[DONTEATUS]

I wonder if people even understand what the ability to shoot that shot really meant ? Its Dizzying !

[DKO]

Edited August 7, 2012 by DKO

[DONTEATUS]

Curiosity II Lands on Mars !

[DKO]

[Bavarian Raven]

i'm glad it made it there and landed and is working! great job!!!

now lets find something interesting XD

[TheJoker]

If there are aliens it's better not to alarm them...

[jimbur]

If there are aliens it's better not to alarm them...

[CRIPTIC CHAMELEON]

Cool!

[None of the above]

This is a fantastic achievement and the whole world shares America's pride in it.

Well done to all concerned.

I can't wait to see high-res images of the pyramids

seriously though, I can't wait for the data to really start rolling back in.

[Silver Surfer]

Its new its coming its.... Google Mars Street View

Edited August 7, 2012 by 4MinuteNile

[New World Within]

Its already sending in stunning pictures of Mars..

http://ow.ly/cMD9N

Its already sending in stunning pictures of Mars..

http://ow.ly/cMD9N

[stevewinn]

im really looking forward to pictures and findings, especially the pictures with the HD cameras we should be blown away. fingers crossed they find evidence of life on mars, - how long is the 'life expectancy' of curiosity? the other rover spirit had 90 days but as we know went on for 6 years? and continues today gathering data.

[King Fluffs]

I hope it brings me back a piece of rock.

[bee]

I hope it brings me back a piece of rock.

of course it will, Your Majesty.....thy will be done

:-)

.

[bee]

This is a fantastic achievement and the whole world shares America's pride in it.

Well done to all concerned.

Yes we do...and congratulations to all involved...

I can't wait to see high-res images of the pyramids

I've seen 4 aliens on the images already.......

.

[Sundew]

I think this is great news but there will always be the few that will say "Why did they waste money on this? Why not spending it on curing cancer?"

Great job mankind.

Well, I heard from a radio announcer that the cost of the mission per capita of the U.S. population comes to $7 per American. I think we can afford that and still have money left over to donate to cancer research. And who knows what the research could yield?

Also, now that we have successfully landed a vehicle using this method, perhaps we could land one on one of the ice moons with liquid oceans and, armed with an ROV (and something to melt a hole), find out if there is life there as well.

[JesseCuster]

It looks like it was a big mistake to use Microsoft Windows as Curiosity's operating system...

[MID]

We did, but (pardon me being both pedantic and partisan) Cassini may have been a NASA project but the Huygens lander was made by ESA.

I stand with you, WSaspie!

..besides, with a name like Huygens, how could I have missed that fact???

[JesseCuster]

The heat shield as photographed from above after it was discarded during descent. I can't get enough of these images and can't wait to see what is to come when it starts its mission proper.

[Indiogene]

Congrats NASA on Curiousity...kills a Martian alien bug. (space module makes a touchdown landing) "OUCH!" The endless quest for extraterrestrial life isn't a waste of money, it's part of human curiousity explores the universe farther into infinity, as long as it takes. It's unfortunate NASA cut-ended the Space Shuttle program when manned space exploration is in the process of complete multi-national privatization in an era where the entire human race needs to work together in exploration of outer space.