FIRST LIGHT: One of Curiosity's first images of Mars.
Image: NASA
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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The seven minutes of terror are over.
NASA's Curiosity rover touched down safely on the surface of Mars early Monday morning, Eastern Daylight Time, sticking the landing in what had been one of the most anticipated—and feared—arrivals in the history of robotic planetary exploration.
The 900-kilogram rover autonomously navigated its landing sequence, slowing from 21,000 kilometers per hour at the top of the atmosphere to a dead stop on the surface, with nary an apparent hitch. The elaborate process, which involved a detachable heat shield, a supersonic parachute and finally a hovering sky crane that lowered the rover to the surface, had been branded the "seven minutes of terror" in a NASA video released in June. In the end, based on preliminary data at least, the fears were for naught.
"It looked good, in short," said entry, descent and landing engineer Adam Steltzner in a post-landing news conference. "Good and clean."
The data from the descending rover were relayed to Earth by the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which passed nearby as Curiosity executed its landing sequence. On NASA TV Steltzner could be seen pacing in front of his workstation in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). But each successive step of the landing sequence passed by without incident, and finally a mission controller announced words that caused the room to erupt in cheers: "Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars."
Within minutes Curiosity relayed its first images of the Red Planet, beaming back a low-resolution shot of one of its six wheels. A higher-resolution version followed, along with a photograph of the rover's own shadow cast across the Martian soil.
In a nearly two-year, $2.5-billion mission, the rover will explore Gale Crater, a basin with a towering mound of sedimentary layers. The mission should help determine what Mars was like during an earlier, wetter era billions of years ago, and whether the planet could have once been hospitable to extraterrestrial life.
The three-meter-long, two-meter-tall rover comes equipped with 10 science instruments, including an onboard sample analysis unit for assessing the chemistry of rock and soil samples and a laser that can vaporize small regions of rocks several meters away to analyze their composition. Curiosity's unprecedented science payload draws its power from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, a 4.8-kilogram plutonium fuel source whose radioactive decay provides heat, which devices called themocouples convert to about 110 watts of electricity.
"Nobody has ever done anything like this," John Holdren, the White House science adviser, told NASA TV. "This is by far the most capable device, set of instruments, we've put up there for determining whether Mars ever could have supported life."
Nobody had ever attempted anything like the sky crane–enabled landing, either. But some saw good omens, even before the seven minutes of terror had begun. At the post-landing news conference, JPL Director Charles Elachi said he had stepped outside to look at Mars in the evening sky shortly before the landing sequence commenced. "In an hour and a half, you're going to have a visitor," Elachi said as he gazed to the west, he recalled. "And the planet smiled."
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Add CommentNEWS FLASH- Martian Council passes parking meter law. NASA passes hat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll kidding aside this is a tremendous achievement that promises to throw a whole new light on our solar system. Kuddos to the scientists and engineers involved in the Curiosity program. Great Job!
Watching Olympic gymnasts stick their landings this past week has been entertaining. Opportunity sticking its' landing is awe-inspiring. Looking forward to a treasure trove of new science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's hope, when the science is done in the crater, there will be a way out. I hate to think, the next 12 years, will be spent, at the bottom of a hole (as interesting as it may be). GK
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAm I the only one concerned about the amount of dust that made it past the dust covers on those optics? I don't mean to be negative, this is an incredible feat, I'm just a little worried about the condition of the rover.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh ye (me) of little faith. I knew the cameras had dust covers and assumed they had opened for the initial photos. Nope, the lens covers are transparent and are still closed. No worries!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs one US Congresswoman asked in a NASA funding committee meeting, "Can the rover go to where the Astronauts planted the US flag?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll seriousness aside, an "Attaboy!" to the hardware and software engineers at NASA.
Well done and remarkable. Questions? Are there resources on Mars that could be used to build habitats? Can we get mining and processing equipment there? Is there an area where we could extract a form of fuel usable by our equipment? While the search for pure knowledge is admirable, the people that hold the purse strings on this planet are looking for more. Give the money moguls a reason to move into space and funding for science will never be a problem. Something to consider.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there were Media in Mars, how would they have seen the mars landing of Curiosity!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead it in my blog
http://theeternaltruth.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/meanwhile-in-mars/
This time, ladies and gentlemen, let me put it in my native language!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this¡Qué bárbaros! ¡Qué forma de aterrizar en Marte!
Y por lo pronto ya estamos contaminando Marte.
No nos conformamos con contaminar la Tierra.
Pero ni modo. Si no nos aventamos como “el Borlas” nunca habríamos de llegar.
Y esta vez llegamos en serio, con ganas de “hacer negocio”.
Sin despreciar, de ninguna forma, los experimentos que ese laboratorio móvil seguramente realizará con éxito, con todo el beneficio que para el conocimiento humano ello implica, ese acrobático descenso en Marte es una verdadera proeza técnica.
Para comenzar no está nada mal.
¡Muchas felicidades para todos los directamente involucrados, muy especialmente (aunque no exclusivamente) para todos los involucrados en el descenso!
That was my reaction when I heard the news!
Excellent!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis us up there among the greatest technological feats...ever.
@Dream_Wvr - Martian surface dust is rich in iron oxides (that's why it is red), and it could be reduced to iron using Carbon Monoxide derived from the atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGetting mining equipment there in any quantity depends on using electric propulsion (10x gain) and asteroid-derived fuel (50x gain) and bootstrapping a starter kit of smelter and machine tools (5x gain?) to make mining equipment on site. That gives perhaps a 5000x gain over delivering stuff via current rockets direct from Earth.
Right now we can deliver 1 ton of equipment to Mars. If you are serious about mining we need to grow that to thousands of tons, and so need the kinds of gains listed above.
The land area of Mars is equal to the land area of Earth. I suggest real estate as a motivation. To those who say it's just an empty desert, well so was Las Vegas not too long ago.
Curiosity Landed in Mars!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCongratulations for Nasa and for United States of America.Each space endeavour is a giant Humanity step forward.
Laghdaf Abadila,
Morocco,
North Africa.
I am mad yet interested that John Gray is willing to spend his life long savings on buying planet Uranus...I cannot believe what this world is coming to! I could clearly see in 2070 our whole solar system being "bought" by future rich misers! I heard about this only a week ago yet it is all I can think about! what would the people of the past think about this? While NASA and PGTA are debating the possibilities of him owning the planet...I think everyone should think of what a doctor/businessman like Gray could even do with a planet like Uranus. Sincerely, Richard Coleman
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am mad yet interested that John Gray is willing to spend his life long savings on buying planet Uranus...I cannot believe what this world is coming to! I could clearly see in 2070 our whole solar system being "bought" by future rich misers! I heard about this only a week ago yet it is all I can think about! what would the people of the past think about this? While NASA and PGTA are debating the possibilities of him owning the planet...I think everyone should think of what a doctor/businessman like Gray could even do with a planet like Uranus. Sincerely, Richard Coleman
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRichard, I understand most fully and I positively agree with you. But babbling on and on about these matters does nothing to help....but even, why complain to all of these intelligent people who already know about John Gray's plans...just sit down and accept it...yes, you can be angry, but you can't change a person or their plans...face it,Uranus WILL become an owned planet very soon...and soon will the others...Jupiter,Neptune,and even dwarf planets....Say! Maybe one day I will own some sort of planet! Besides,10.6 trillion or whatever IS a heck of a lot of money...so let him have it,OK?
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