Nasa Curiosity Landing.7 minutes of terror

[Deano]

A giant space probe will plunge into the atmosphere of Mars at a speed of more than 21,000 km/h on Monday evening NZ time.
 For the next seven minutes, its onboard computer will issue electronic instructions to direct the craft through manoeuvres of unprecedented complexity to guide it to the ground.

Atmospheric friction and a giant parachute will cut its speed to a few hundred kilometres an hour. Then rocket engines will fire and the probe will slow down until it hovers about 20m above the Red Planet's surface.

The spaceship's hold will open and a one-tonne robot rover, Curiosity, will be lowered - on three nylon cables - on to the surface of the Gale Crater, near the Martian equator, the craft's target landing site.

After two seconds, explosive bolts will cut the cables and the probe will be instructed to give a final blast of its engines to lift itself clear of Curiosity and to crash-land at a safe distance.

The rover, the size of a small car, will then start its journey over the Martian landscape.

It is an intensely delicate operation. Should any part of the landing sequence go wrong, US$2.5 billion ($3.14 billion) worth of hardware, and a decade of effort by astronomers, will be splattered over the Martian landscape.

 All of which makes the Curiosity's imminent landing a very nervous affair, a point stressed by Nasa engineer Adam Steltzner. "From the top of the atmosphere of Mars to its surface, it will take seven minutes for the probe to descend. It also takes 14 minutes or so for the signal from the spacecraft to reach us, that's how far Mars is from Earth. So when we first get word that Curiosity has reached the top of the atmosphere, the vehicle will have already been on the surface - alive or dead - for at least seven minutes."

As another engineer added: "I just hope seven is our lucky number."

Link to mission website http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
Landing live coverage from Nasa TV here.http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/

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[gabba]

Mars is a notoriously difficult place to land craft - over the years there hasn't been alot of success and it amazes me that we have actually managed to get rovers landed there at all.

I remember hearing about one mission that sent millions/ billions of dollars of equipment hurtling towards the planet, only to find there was a programmatic error (a comma instead of a full stop from memory) in the routine that told the rockets to fire and slow the craft. Unfortunately the result was an expensive rubbish dump suddenly appearing on the surface of Mars.

Lets hope they have QA'd the code this time round! 

[Deano]

Found this list of missions & failures. Quite extensive.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/A-History-of-Missions-to-Mars-164800156.html
 

[Weather Display]

lots of failures there by USSR

[TokWW]

First two pictures back to earth by the Mars Curiosity Rover Vehicle
Just edited and uploaded the formal pic.

[Deano]

Thanks Graeme. I followed the last 2 rovers around for ages. This 1 has better power but heavier! Higher res cameras also.

[TokWW]

Deano, you can still follow the Rover "Opportunity" which landed with teh Rover "Spirit" in 2004, now after 35kms of travel is still performing tasks. (the title relates to a marathon distance of 42kms)

NASA's Opportunity Rover Near Finish Line of Martian Race

Although it has this title, they are not relaxing on a steady path of activity for this old rover.  The other one, Spirit, became stuck in sand some months ago after 5 years of operation in 2009, and was delcared inoperative in May 2011.

More here:

http://news.yahoo.com/mars-marathon-nasas-opportunity-rover-near-finish-line-150148932.html

Typically, Opportunity drives only 165 to 330 feet (50 to 100 meters) each day. The rover often pauses to investigate its surroundings, taking plenty of photos along the way, NASA officials said. In fact, Opportunity recently beamed back its 100,000th image.

A recent panorama taken by Opportunity:

http://www.space.com/16446-mars-panorama-picture-opportunity-rover.html