Houston: Curiosity Has Landed
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
NASA continued to add to its running story about man’s exploration of Mars Sunday night, as its latest rover Curiosity successfully landed on the Red Planet.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entered the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph on Sunday night, delivering the rover to its new home planet.
Here at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, everyone let out a sigh of relief and cheered as the rover completed its 352 million mile journey to Mars, softly landing onto the surface unharmed.
During the descent through the atmosphere about 80 miles above the surface, the heat shield did most of the work, slowing down the rover from 13,200 mph to 1,000 mph.
At about 255 seconds after entry, MSL unleashed its parachute after entering into the Martian atmosphere and surviving the 3,800 degree Fahrenheit heat. The parachute popped out while the craft was still hurtling 900 mph towards the surface of Mars, which is the top speed of an F18 fighter jet.
After a couple of more miles, MSL jettisoned off its heat shield and exposed Curiosity for a view of its new home for the first time. At this moment, the spacecraft’s radar began working, helping to give engineers a measurement at how far Curiosity is from the ground.
The Backshell Separation, which had the parachute attached to it, left the rover to free fall for a few seconds at 180 miles per hour, until engineers fired up eight retrorockets to help guide the rover towards the ground similar to a jetpack.
The retrorockets used during the landing controlled the descent, enabling NASA’s new “Sky Crane” maneuver to be tried out. While using the method, the rover was lowered down towards its landing target via the jet pack through cables, which were 25 feet long.
Curiosity’s wheels and suspension system popped into place like a charm, and the Sky Crane was able to safely plop Mars newest citizen onto the ground.
There was about a 13 minute delay between what was happening on Mars, and when NASA was able to find out about it.
Now, Curiosity sits at Gale Crater on Mars with the hope of being able to report back to scientists on Earth whether the planet has ever had conditions that were favorable to host life.
After landing, Curiosity’s computers switched from entry, descent and landing mode, to surface mode in order to start day one of its newly found life on Mars.
NASA will be doing a post-landing news briefing later on tonight, and new images from Curiosity could be posted as early as tomorrow. You will be able to keep track of any new information available by staying connected to redOrbit.
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2012-08-05 22:26:51
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112669749/mars-curiosity-landing-a-success-080512/
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