Curiosity: Destination Mars
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Curiosity: Destination Mars
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Bobbi Snow
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If you're still breathing, it's not too late!-
Bobbi Snow
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http://www.tehrantimes.com/component/co ... icle/98745
Instead, NASA's new Mars mission, scheduled for landing on August 6, is primarily a geological expedition to an intriguing piece of real estate called Gale Crater, located just south of the Martian equator.
Scientists believe the crater formed some 3.5 billion to 3.8 billion years ago when Mars, Earth and the rest of the planets in the inner solar system were regularly bombarded by meteorites.
Gale's most striking feature is not the 96-mile (154-km) wide pit in the ground, but a 3-mile-high a(5-km-high) mound of debris rising from the crater's floor.
Scientists believe the mountain, located in the center of the basin, is the layered remains of sediment that once filled the crater.
Over time and by a process not well understood, the sediment was carried away, leaving what is now known as Mount Sharp, which scientists hope will reveal the geological history of Mars like no similar formation can do on Earth.
"There is no place on Earth you can go to get the whole history at once," Grotzinger told journalists during a field trip last month to California's Death Valley, one of the few places where chunks of Earth's geologic record covering large spans of time are exposed.
"At Gale you don't need to reconstruct the layers. You can see how they go from older to younger. You've got time's arrow always pointed in the right direction. It's all laid out very simply," Grotzinger said.
Previous missions to Mars revealed compelling evidence that the planet was once warmer and wetter than the cold, dry desert it is today. For example, NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, one of which is still operating after more than seven years on the planet's surface, found minerals that on Earth form only in the presence of water.
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
http://twitter.com/#!/marscuriosity
https://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/b ... osity.html
https://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/b ... osity.html
Last edited by SquidInk on 07-02-2012 02:15 PM, edited 1 time in total.
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
http://www.space.com/16917-mars-rover-c ... today.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/curios ... atest_news
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
NASA's 1-ton Curiosity rover is set to land inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater at 10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (Aug. 5; 1:31 a.m. EDT and 0531 GMT on Aug. 6). As with any planetary landing, success is not a given, and tensions may be especially high tonight given Curiosity's elaborate, unprecedented landing sequence.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/curios ... atest_news
NASA begins live coverage Sunday at 8:30 p.m. Pacific, or 10:30 p.m. Eastern, with confirmation of touchdown planned for about two hours after that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
PASADENA, Calif. - After a journey of 354 million miles to the outskirts of Mars, the Curiosity rover and its spacecraft are speeding up and coming under the influence of the planet’s gravity as it prepares for a dramatic landing early Monday.
NASA officials said early Sunday afternoon that the spacecraft was about 100,000 from Mars and remained in ideal shape. They also said its position in relation to the point selected to enter the atmosphere also is on target. The upcoming landing is one of the riskiest ever tried, with final descent that starts at 13,200 mph and ends after what NASA officials call “seven minutes of terror.”
That landing is scheduled for 1:31 a.m., and officials said they could know almost immediately if the rover was safely on the ground. That tracking would come from the Odyssey orbiter circling Mars, if the spacecraft is able to get to the right location at the right time.
If not, the waiting time for a final answer on whether the rover was safely on the surface could range from two to eight hours. If no signal arrives from Curiosity via three Mars orbiters and the Deep Space Network after 18 hours, NASA officials said, then they would start to worry about its safety.
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... el#photo=7
Eleven things you may not know:
A 2.5 billion dollar gamble? Is this simply welfare for engineers and scientists. Could SpaceX do this better, faster, and cheaper?
Eleven things you may not know:
- 1. All the chips are riding on this
In this stripped-down economic time, the $2.5 billion mission could become the last of its kind if something goes wrong. Or it could send back such compelling information and pictures that the public demands more Mars exploration, and Congress and the White House have to respond. Before you bet, know that only six of more than a dozen spacecraft that have reached Mars actually landed successfully and completed their missions. All six were American. Will Curiosity be the seventh? (Left, Curiosity launches on Nov. 26 from Cape Canaveral.) - 2. The scariest seven minutes
Why worry about Curiosity's arrival? The descent module is set to go from 13,200 mph to 0 in 6 1/2 minutes. How will the several stages survive that landing? NASA has meticulously planned but noted that on this entry -- as well as other systems on the mission -- it is using innovations tested separately before, but never together. For instance, an untried "'sky crane'' maneuver is supposed to drop the rover, gently, the last 60 feet from a "descent module'' hovering like a helicopter. (Left, an artist's concept of NASA's spacecraft approaching Mars.) - 3. Is NASA looking for Martians?
No. Nor tiny moving animals or insects. The missions wants to see if the planet has the carbon-based compounds that are the building blocks of life. It will also look for habitats that might once have supported life. But it is not a "life-detection" mission like the Viking landers before it. - 4. Curiosity is continuing what the Viking landers started in 1976
The Viking landers were the first to successfully land on Mars, and their goal was to determine whether the planet could support life. The official conclusion? No, it could not. Each Viking landed on a cold, desert plain, and both did not find organic material. No organics, no life, the thinking went. Yet one experiment, which added a radioactive tracer to nutrients deposited into a Viking-scooped soil sample, did get positive results. The experiment's principal investigator, Gilbert Levin, is still fighting to convince NASA and other scientists that the experiment did succeed -- and life was present. Some accept his findings; most do not. (Left, the NASA Viking Lander is pictured in a Mars simulation laboratory.) - 5. Why has it taken more than 35 years for NASA to come back?
The Viking findings were fascinating, but they made clear that NASA did not have the knowledge or equipment to rigorously search for life or its building blocks on Mars. The field of astrobiology -- more generally, the search for life beyond Earth -- went into eclipse for decades, but was rejuvenated by a series of discoveries beginning in the mid-1990s. Now astrobiology is central to what NASA does. The Curiosity instrument that will do the heavy lifting in searching for organics is the gold-plated Sample Analysis on Mars, and is generally described as the most sophisticated instrument ever sent to another planet. (Left, Curiosity before launch at Kennedy Space Center.) - 6. Curiosity will be the largest object made by humans to land on Mars.
The rover is roughly three times heavier than the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. It's twice as large. It carries 10 instruments (the previous twins had five each), and the Curiosity insturments together weigh 165 pounds compared with 11 pounds for Spirit and Opportunity. Curiosity's heavier weight prompted the high-risk, high-stakes landing. (Left, a test drive of a Curiosity stand-in in California's Mojave Desert.) - 7. The mission won't “follow the water” but will “follow the carbon”
The water-on-Mars issue is settled. The Curiosity landing site, Gale Crater, is known to have been covered in water billions of years ago because of the presence of clays and minerals which can only be formed in the presence of water. Satellites that orbit Mars have sent back images that clearly show dried river beds, large dried deltas and even tantalizing glimpses of what might be liquid water running down cliffs during summer. The next question: Does Mars have the carbon-based organics needed for life? - 8. Curiosity should keep on ticking
Although the rover's mission is scheduled for two years, NASA officials say its nuclear battery easily could last for a decade, powering movement of the one-ton rover and keeping it warm in the negative-100-degree nights. Previous Mars rovers used solar power; Curiosity was too big for that. A significant threat to a longer mission is financial: Will Congress and a future White House want to pay for Curiosity as many other NASA programs are being cut? (Left, a drawing of the Curiosity's payload.) - 9. The rover can climb mountains
While the Spirit and Opportunity rovers went into small craters and up gentle slopes, Curiosity was designed for tougher things. It will touch down in Gale Crater's flatlands, but its real destination is Mount Sharp, which sits in the middle of the crater and rises three miles high. Named after planetary scientist Robert Sharp, the mountain has exposed rock faces that can be "read" to learn about the planet's history. - 10. We'll know how much radiation hits Mars. Too much for humans?
A detector will register high-energy atomic and subatomic particles reaching Mars from the sun, distant supernovas and other sources. The radiation they create could be harmful to any microbes near the surface of Mars or to astronauts on a future Mars mission. (Left, the Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector.) - 11. Curiosity can think for itself. Sort of.
Previous Mars rovers have decided how to avoid a rock in their way or steer clear of a steep decline. But some at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory speak of Curiosity's rudimentary "thinking,'' akin to a robot. Curiosity does not have what is formally considered artificial intelligence, but it can gather data and make decisions in a new way. Some of the rover drivers at JPL even worry that although they will know Curiosity's moves, they won't necessarily know how it decided to do them. The rover isn't about to go rogue, but it could provide some real decision-making surprises. (More information about Curiosity is at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.)
A 2.5 billion dollar gamble? Is this simply welfare for engineers and scientists. Could SpaceX do this better, faster, and cheaper?
Last edited by SquidInk on 08-05-2012 02:50 PM, edited 1 time in total.
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
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Dale O Sea
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Cherry Kelly
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YA DOWN and sent pix too.. ok B&W but it landed safely.
Listening to all the ability this thing has - would say its worth it!! (Sure beams the stimulus to the bankrupt green companies ehh?)
10 years in the making, planning, etc. Now they will run all the checks on the different things it has - and a laser beam - wow. nuclear powered we could be getting all kinds of info over not just the next 10 yrs - but 20-30 yrs...
Listening to all the ability this thing has - would say its worth it!! (Sure beams the stimulus to the bankrupt green companies ehh?)
10 years in the making, planning, etc. Now they will run all the checks on the different things it has - and a laser beam - wow. nuclear powered we could be getting all kinds of info over not just the next 10 yrs - but 20-30 yrs...
