Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) Lands on Mars!

First Picture from the Curiosity Explorer on Mars. One of the rover's wheels appears in the corner. The horizon is curved due to a fish-eye lens on the camera.

"Seven minutes of terror" was a good prediction! As the Mars Science Laboratory hurtled from space into the atmosphere of Mars, ground controllers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA were biting their nails and anxiously awaiting signals from the sensors. Of course, since Mars is so far away, it takes about 15 minutes for the signals to reach Earth, and there is nothing the controllers can do; the landing (or crash!) had already happened! As the signals came in, though, each signal received showed each step in the landing proceeding as expected, and the rover Curiosity made a safe landing on Martian soil.

The JPL control room erupted in cheers.

You would have thought Neil Armstrong had just walked on Mars. But after all, it was just a robot. Then again, this was no ordinary robot! Unlike the tiny Sojourner, or the medium sized Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Curiosity is a big auto-sized robotic rover that will explore a good chunk of Martian territory over the next two or more years. Instead of using the inflatable bounce-landing balloon approach, NASA opted for a new risky landing due to the rover's size. When the re-entry shield dropped off, a large hypersonic parachute deployed to slow the craft's descent to the surface. Just before reaching the surface, the protective structure (Mars Science Laboratory) housing and protecting the rover (Curiosity) fired thrusters to hover above the surface. The rover was then lowered by cables below the MSL's structure. With the rover ready, the thrusters reduced power and the entire system moved down until Curiosity landed, and sensors on the cables indicated to the MSL that there was no weight on them anymore. With that signal, the cables released the rover and the MSL rocketed away from the rover site.

Curiosity experiment diagram.

The landing actually occurred at about 11:15 p.m. MDT, with the signals reaching us on Earth at about 11:32 p.m. MDT. Within minutes, as the cheering continued at JPL, the first pictures arrived as "thumbnails" (small in signal size) showing the shadow of the rover and the horizon of Mars. Over the next couple of days, color pictures and images with higher HD resolution will be plastered all over the Internet and television screens as Curiosity begins its exploration. The mission: a 2-year investigation of Gale Crater, 96 miles in diameter and what NASA thinks is the best chance so far to examine the geology of Mars searching for signs of past or present life.

The current Mars Scoreboard.

Lest anyone get the idea that this landing was easy, NASA published a "Scoreboard" showing our human success rate at sending probes to Mars. So far, only the USA and Russia have been sending probes at the red planet, and to show you how hard that really is, take a look at the score: 15 successful missions and 24 failures! Unfortunately for Russia, they have experienced nothing but failures. Rather than look at their efforts as cursed, however, it's valuable to realize how HARD it is to send a probe through 350 million + miles of radiation-filled space and land it or orbit it exactly where you want.

It's just that NASA is REALLY good, and they make it look easy.

By Mark Daymont

Space Center Educator

Spacerubble.blogspot.com

The Imaginarium for the Dark Days

The Center is closed until August 15th. Our minds needs rest.

Our imaginations need to be recharged.

Hello Troops,
The Space Center is closed until August 15th.  The staff need some time away from the front lines, I need some time to recharge and catch up on sleep from countless nights spent sleeping in the gym or in front of my desk, and the simulators themselves need a healthy dose of TLC to prepare them for the Fall, Winter and Spring Offensive expected to start in the middle of September.

I'll tell you what we're going to do.  How about we hop aboard the Wonderland Express and spend some time in the Imaginarium?  What better way to spend a nice, quiet weekend.
 

"The Troubadour is taking us back to the Imaginarium!" 

I post this only to comment on the nature of Christianity in America.  I saw this and was immediately reminded of my last family reunion.  I come from a mixed religious family, having grown up in predominately Lutheran South Dakota.  Our extended family consists of  Mormons, Lutherans, Atheists, Agnostics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics, etc.   During lunch,  I like to sit at the Religious Discussions Allowed picnic table.   My cousins and I understand the table's strict rules of fairness and respect.  I like listening to the various expressions of faith and beliefs while enjoying the tangy mustard potato salad, molasses baked beans and greasy fried chicken.  The diversity is like a breath of fresh air.     

Perfect for a high school wall.

Where's your sense of humor?

Tears for fallen comrades.

Last week I drove to Salt Lake City to see the new City Creek Mall.  I was expecting to be overwhelmed by color, design and creativity.  Instead I was surprised by what I considered uninspiring architecture. It was a palace of right angles and squares with an impressive retractable roof.  The colors were various shades of desert brown and white.   All and all it was sterile, clean and tidy.   The whole time I kept thinking something was missing.  Perhaps a bit of FUN  and WHIMSY in design and purpose (as shown above).  Perhaps a bit of Disney Main Street USA.

A land fun to play in but with eyes everywhere, would you want to live there?

Not the kind of window display designed to draw your normal customer into the shop.

Creativity gone macabre.

The primer on great, creative, imaginative minds

Don't tell me, yours too?

Great job on creativity.

The normal sign at the train station would say

"No Stopping Longer than 3 Minutes"

Drats, my secret is out.

 I highly recommend it when your life needs a new direction :)

Are people predestined or is life all chance?

Yes, a perfect discussion while enjoying the mustard potato salad, molasses baked beans

 and greasy fried chicken.

Perspective is the something we forget when we get into the

"Woe is me," doldrums of life.

Is there a better way to build a staircase?

OK Troops,

here you are sixty years into the future.

Getting old will take on a completely new meaning with you

A real sculpture in New Zealand.  

Awesome. (the tree also).

Great creative use of space.

Mind you, the owner would have to be in great shape to get UP to the bed.

The perfect way to learn geography.

Every school's toilets should have things just like this on the wall.

Of course you get the stick with the corn dog.

Got you to look and think, didn't it?

The Borg Wedding Cake.

A reception I wouldn't want to miss.

A friendly creative reminder on the soda machine.

Get it!

And finally, two photos depicting the remedy for a sizzling summer day......

An Ice Cold Diet Coke and Over the Top Ice Cream Cone.

Care to join me?

An Insane Mars Landing Tomorrow Night. Fingers Crossed

Hello Troops,
Tomorrow night around 11:31 P.M. our time, NASA's Curiosity Rover will touch down on Mars...... or will it?  Landing on Mars is a very tricky thing.  We've lost missions to Mars in the past, and don't even bring the subject up to the Russians if you want to walk away with your beautifully aligned nose.

It will be a nail biting descent.  It will be 7 minutes of terror.  It will go down in history as one of American's greatest engineering achievements if it works.

Why the drama in the paragraphs above?  Am I exaggerating?  See for yourself.  Watch the following two videos.  The first is a rough overview.  The second gives more depth from the people who will be biting their nails and wringing their hands in terror at JPL in California.  Stay up to watch the landing on the NASA channel with your bowl of popcorn and favorite soda.  I'll be watching, listening and biting a nail or two of my own as the information streams to Earth on a 14 or so minute delay because of the 352 million mile distance between Mars and Earth.   

It doesn't get any more exciting than this folks when it comes to the exploration of space.  Satisfy that little bit of nerd inside you and see what fate and some serious math and engineering brings us - the joy of victory or the agony of defeat. 

Mr. Williamson