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Curiosity’s Dramatic MARDI Descent Movie

Monday, August 6, 2012 23:09

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(Before It's News)

Image Caption: Curiosity Heat shield falls away from the bottom of Curiosity and the Sky Crane descent stage in this image from the MARDI camera.
Watch the video below. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS

As NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) was in the final stages of her flawless but harrowing decent to Gale Crater on Mars overnight (Aug. 5/6) employing the never before use rocket powered sky crane descent stage, dramatic movie-like imagery of the plunge was being recorded by MARDI, the Mars Descent Imager camera positioned on the belly of the rover and pointed downwards.

The first low resolution MARDI images and video (above and below) were beamed back to Earth just hours after landing and clearly show the jettisoning of the heat shield moments after it sprung loose to expose Curiosity and MARDI for landing.(…)
Read the rest of Curiosity’s Dramatic MARDI Descent Movie (423 words)

© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Gale crater, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Mount Sharp, MSL, NASA, Sky Crane