Curiosity (Mars Lander)

[Winnow]

We still have a little over a month before Curiosity reaches Mars. I'm a little worried about this particular effort. There's so much that has to go right for the lander to reach the surface. (more than the usual shitload of things that need to go right with planetary missions)

Check out this video "7 Minutes of Terror" where NASA peeps describe the lander's descent.

http://youtu.be/Ki_Af_o9Q9s?hd=1

I thought the bouncing ball strategy was great on the last set of rovers. I sure hope they can pull this off.

[masteen]

Bouncing balls are fine when you're not particular were you land, but if we're going to seriously survey the surface, we need to be able to land with some degree of precision.

[Winnow]

Bouncing balls are fine when you're not particular were you land, but if we're going to seriously survey the surface, we need to be able to land with some degree of precision.

Yeah. I didn't say it would work for this mission, just that I liked the method they used to land the smaller rovers.

[Winnow]

Sunday (Aug 5th) is the big day. 10 PM PST. I'll be watching on the webcast.

NBCNews.com

NEW YORK — NASA's biggest Mars rover landing yet is about to hit Broadway.

New Yorkers hoping to see the Aug. 5/6 landing of NASA's huge Mars rover Curiosity alongside like-minded space fans can head to Times Square here on Sunday night to catch the rover's touchdown on the Red Planet live on a giant LED television screen.

NASA Television's coverage of the agency's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission landing will be broadcast live on the Toshiba Vision screen that hangs below the iconic New Year's Eve ball in Times Square, space agency officials say.

The broadcast begins at 11:30 p.m. EDT Sunday night and runs until 4 a.m. EDT Monday morning. The exact time of landing is scheduled for 1:31 a.m. EDT Monday, though it will be late Monday night at the rover's California-based mission control room.

"In the city that never sleeps, the historic Times Square will be the place for New Yorkers to participate in this historic landing," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science missions, said in a statement Tuesday. "When you think of all the big news events in history, you think of Times Square, and I can think of no better venue to celebrate this news-making event on Mars." [ Mars Rover's Nail-Biting Landing in Pictures ]

NASA Curiosity probe is a Mini Cooper-size rover designed to spend two years exploring the vast Gale Crater in pursuit of some of Mars' biggest mysteries, including the question of whether water, and maybe even life, ever existed there. The rover launched in November 2011 and is now poised to land in a nail-biting maneuver this weekend involving a hovering rocket-powered " Sky Crane " that will lower the vehicle to Mars' surface via tethers.

The landing broadcast will originate from Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's in Pasadena, Calif., which designed the rover and is managing the mission. If the landing is successful, viewers will be able to see scientists receive the first signal from the rover on Mars.

The audio track for the broadcast will be carried on the online radio station Third Rock Radio, which can be accessed from the NASA homepage at and through the Tuneln mobile app.

"We're pleased the Toshiba Vision screens will offer a unique view of this great scientific achievement, the landing of the rover Curiosity on Mars," said Eddie Temistokle, senior manager of corporate communications and corporate social responsibility for Toshiba America Inc.

Other sites around the country, including many of the NASA centers, also will host live viewing events for the landing, which is NASA's most ambitious and expensive planetary mission on the horizon.

To find a Mars rover landing event near you, check NASA's complete listing of events here.

NASA's webcast of the entire Mars rover Curiosity landing will begin at Aug. 5 at 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 Aug. 6 GMT) on NASA TV here.

[masteen]

This could be the most important unmanned flight in NASA history. Being able to pick and hit a landing spot on Mars is the foundation for... everything really.

[Zaelath]

I've only just seen how complicated the landing proceedure is.. the whole thing is Zaphod inspired: "We are not going to be great, we are not going to be amazing — we are going to be amazingly amazing!"

[Boogahz]

amazinglier

[Canelek]

Just read about the landing procedue as well. Crazy and inventive! Soon!

[Canelek]

TOUCHDOWN! First images coming through!!! Best NASA moment for me since first space shuttle flight!

[Winnow]

I'm so proud of NASA and everyone involved with this mission.

I was going to say double our NASA budget if it was successful and quadruple it if it failed. Moments like this that inspire and make me proud of humanity are so few and far between.

[Canelek]

I'm so proud of NASA and everyone involved with this mission.

I was going to say double our NASA budget if it was successful and quadruple it if it failed. Moments like this that inspire and make me proud of humanity are so few and far between.

Pretty much! It is a really fantastic moment!

[Winnow]

The missions inspirational quote:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

I can't believe it's already been eight years since Spirit and Opportunity reached Mars and how freaking long they lasted beyond their 90 day estimated life time. The time between missions makes failure heartbreaking when it happens. NASA has had an incredible 6 straight successful missions to Mars (pending a systems check on Curiosity, but the landing was 99% of the challenge). To put that into perspective, before this mission, the success rate for missions to Mars was about 33%.

[Zaelath]

Most excellent.

[Winnow]

MSL Sol 3 Press Conference:


http://youtu.be/6f8HHQ2U2jg?hd=1

This is day three's press conference. They show off some of the first high res images and explain some things.

Here's NASA TV's YouTube link:

http://youtu.be/6f8HHQ2U2jg?hd=1

This is perfect for anyone interested in the mission. You get the best informationm, untouched by local news slants, etc.

[Winnow]

Here's the NASA press conference regarding analysis of the powder from Curiosity's first drilling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvCfOVGHWCc

I love watching these ~1 hour long press conferences whenever they appear.

Biggest take away was the quote that the water would have been pure enough to drink back when it flowed in the area of the drilling.

John Grotzinger, Curiosity Project Scientist, really has a "Carl Sagan" type way or presenting science.

This guy:



Sitting back and listening to intelligent scientists, without agendas, talk about their findings is something I want to do as often as possible.

NASA: Yes, Mars could have hosted life

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

Curiosity, humanity's most powerful rover to land on Mars, has made a startling discovery: Conditions that could have supported life once existed there.

"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign, and supportive of life, that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it," John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a Tuesday news conference.

This discovery is based on the chemical analysis of powder that the rover recovered by drilling a hole in a rock. This was the first time a robot sent from Earth had drilled on another planet.

The powder from the drilling turned out to have a wealth of chemicals in it, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon. These are ingredients for life, scientists said.