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NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team The Mars Science
Laboratory (MSL) team in the MSL Mission Support Area react after learning
the the Curiosity rove has landed safely on Mars and images start coming
in at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Mars, Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012 in
Pasadena, Calif. The MSL Rover named Curiosity was designed to assess
whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms
called microbes.
NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
team in the MSL Mission Support Area react after learning the the Curiosity
rove has landed safely on Mars and images start coming in at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory on Mars, Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012 in Pasadena, Calif. The MSL Rover
named Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment
able to support small life forms called microbes.
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed
on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack,
touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year
investigation. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that
carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing ever
attempted on Mars, including the final severing of the bridle cords and
flyaway maneuver of the rocket backpack.
Watch the action live on NASA TV
"Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human
footprints on Mars. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover ever built,
is now on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will seek to answer age-old
questions about whether life ever existed on Mars -- or if the planet can
sustain life in the future," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "This
is an amazing achievement, made possible by a team of scientists and engineers
from around the world and led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA
and our Jet Propulsion Laboratory. President Obama has laid out a bold vision
for sending humans to Mars in the mid-2030's, and today's landing marks
a significant step toward achieving this goal."Curiosity landed
at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain
three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. During a nearly
two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region ever
offered conditions favorable for microbial life. "The Seven Minutes
of Terror has turned into the Seven Minutes of Triumph," said NASA Associate
Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld. "My immense joy in the success
of this mission is matched only by overwhelming pride I feel for the women
and men of the mission's team." Curiosity returned its first view
of Mars, a wide-angle scene of rocky ground near the front of the rover.
More images are anticipated in the next several days as the mission blends
observations of the landing site with activities to configure the rover
for work and check the performance of its instruments and mechanisms.
"Our Curiosity is talking to us from the surface of Mars," said MSL Project
Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif. "The landing takes us past the most hazardous moments for this project,
and begins a new and exciting mission to pursue its scientific objectives."
Confirmation of Curiosity's successful landing came in communications
relayed by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and received by the Canberra, Australia,
antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network. Curiosity carries 10
science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads
on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools are the first
of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental
composition of rocks from a distance. The rover will use a drill and scoop
at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock
interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into analytical laboratory
instruments inside the rover. To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity
is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale
Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of
the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified
clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.
The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL
is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information on the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mars
and https://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
. Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
https://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
And https://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity
. 2012-230 Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-6278 / 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
/ agle@jpl.nasa.gov Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726 NASA Headquarters,
Washington dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Posted August 6, 2012
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