NASA's Curiosity rover scores touchdown on Mars

After 8 months of flight, spacecraft survives '7 minutes of terror' and lands safely

By Alan BoyleScience editor

PASADENA, Calif. — After eight years of planning and eight months of interplanetary travel, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory pulled off a touchdown of Super Bowl proportions, all by itself.

The spacecraft plunged through Mars' atmosphere, fired up a rocket-powered platform and lowered the car-sized, 1-ton Curiosity rover to its landing spot in 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) Gale Crater. Then the platform flew off to its own crash landing, while Curiosity sent out a text message basically saying, "I made it!"

That message was relayed by the orbiting Mars Odyssey satellite back to Earth. A radio telescope in Australia picked up the message and sent it here to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the blips of data appeared on the screens at JPL's mission control, the room erupted in cheers and hugs.

Because of the light-travel time between Mars and Earth, throngs of scientists and engineers — along with millions who were monitoring the action via television and the Internet — celebrated Curiosity's landing 14 minutes after it actually occurred.

Even the engineers who drew up the unprecedented plan for the landing admitted that it looked crazy. But the plan actually worked.

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

MARS Science Laboratory

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/first-image-rover-landing/

First Images from Curiosity Rover on Mars

By Adam Mann
August 6, 2012 |
1:55 am

This is one of the first images taken by NASA’s rover, Curiosity. Taken with the rover’s Hazcam cameras, the image shows rocks, dust, and the rover’s shadow on the surface of Mars

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There are more images at JPL but folks copying may hinder viewing.

- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

Curiosity Lands on Mars

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 10:32:54 PM PDT

NASA's Curiosity rover has landed on Mars! Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface. Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the "sky crane" maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way. The time of day at the landing site is mid-afternoon -- about 3 p.m. local Mars time at Gale Crater. The time at JPL's mission control is about 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT).

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Great job!.

- LRK -

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/msl/120804status/

Curiosity rover on track for daring descent to Mars
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: August 4, 2012

The Mars Science Laboratory rover, still attached to its drum-shaped interplanetary cruise stage, closed in on the red planet Saturday, steadily accelerating under the increasing tug of the planet's gravity as it streaked toward a precisely targeted plunge into the martian atmosphere overnight Sunday for a high-stakes descent to the surface

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http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/05/mars-rover-curiosity-closing-in-on-red-planet-at-8000-mph/

Mars rover Curiosity closing in on red planet at 8,000 mph

Published August 05, 2012

FoxNews.com

Next stop, Mars.

NASA gave the green light late Sunday for the Mars Science Laboratory and the Curiosity rover, which are mere hours from a nerve-wracking landing on Mars, following an 8 ½ month race to the red planet at 8,000 mph. In this case, a green light is no light at all.

"Nominal sounds like a very boring word, but in the world of spaceflight, nominal is engineer for awesome," noted a blog from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, which is in charge of Curiosity's screaming descent. By the time it arrives at Mars, gravity will have accelerated the spacecraft to a whopping 13,200 mph.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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