A NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover team member gives an update on developments and status of the planetary exploration mission. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area on Mars at 1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6, which includes the 13.8 minutes needed for confirmation of the touchdown to be radioed to Earth at the speed of light. The rover will conduct a nearly two-year prime mission to investigate whether the Gale Crater region of Mars ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.
Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks’ elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover’s analytical laboratory instruments.
NASA’s newest Mars rover has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously across the area on the Red Planet where the rover is now driving. The finding is a different type of evidence for water on Mars than ever found before. Scientists are studying Curiosity’s images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels. The sizes and shapes of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock are clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream’s flow.
Special Thanks to Anne Ketola for all the awesome NASA gear, and David Zimmerman for video equipment!
Lyrics:
When I EDL, time for seven minutes of flamin’ hell
Rover’s touchin’ down
everybody passin’ peanuts around, yeah
We’re at mission control, getting full use outta ev-er-y Sol (wa!)
Just 25 feet left to go
It’s Curiosity, look out below (yo)
Crane lower that rover (ah)
Crane lower that rover (ah)
Crane lower that rover (ah)
N-N-N-Now bug out!
Crane lower that rover
Crane lower that rove
Crane lower that rover
Now bug out!
Kickin’ it at my con(sole), this is what I see (okay)
Data streaming back from curiosity
I got stars on my ‘hawk
and I ain’t afraid to show it (show it, show it, show it)
We’re NASA and we know it
We’re NASA and we know it
(Yo)
When I look for ice, gotta calibrate, gotta be precise
And when I raise the mast, panoramic views are unsurpassed (wha?)
This is how I rove, baking red rocks in my nuclear stove
We headed to the peak, with my laser eye
No one to bury me when it’s time to die (ow!)
Crane lower that rover
Crane lower that rover
Crane lower that rover
Now bug out!
Crane lower that rover
Crane lower that rover
Crane lower that rover
Now bug out!
Shoutout to Carl the Sage (and) Neil Degrasse T (B.A.!)
Shoutout to JPL and the Rocker-Bogie
We’re better than SpaceX
And we ain’t afraid to show it (show it, show it, show it)
We’re NASA and we know it
We’re NASA and we know it
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.
Actor William Shatner narrates this thrilling video about NASA’s Curiosity rover, from its entry and descent through the Martian atmosphere to its landing and exploration of the Red Planet in NASA’s hardest planetary science mission to date.
The Mars Science Laboratory, the hardest mission ever attempted in planetary robotic exploration is about to prove its mettle with the landing of its Curiosity rover on the Red Planet. Live coverage begins at 11:30 p.m. Eastern on NASA TV.
With less than three weeks to the scheduled landing of the Curiosity rover on the Red Planet, leaders of Mars Science Laboratory team field questions form media about the mission, the most difficult ever undertaken in the history of interplanetary robotic exploration.
The NASA Mars Science Laboratory launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, beginning its journey to the Red Planet. When it arrives at Gale Crater next August, Curiosity rover’s ten instruments will investigate whether that area of Mars could ever have sustained microbial life. Also, ISS spinoff; Bolden on tour: lander test; best of the feds; money saver; high-flying feast, and more.
This 11-minute animation depicts key events of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, which will launch in late 2011 and land a rover, Curiosity, on Mars in August 2012. A shorter 4-minute version of this animation, with narration, is also available on our youtube page.
