MARS: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Begins Arm-Work Phase

 NASA to Host Telecon About Curiosity Rover Progress

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Mars Rover Curiosity in Artist's Concept, Close-up

This artist concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Curiosity is being tested in preparation for launch in the fall of 2011.

In this picture, the mast, or rover's "head," rises to about 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) above ground level, about as tall as a basketball player. This mast supports two remote-sensing instruments: the Mast Camera, or "eyes," for stereo color viewing of surrounding terrain and material collected by the arm; and, the ChemCam instrument, which is a laser that vaporizes material from rocks up to about 9 meters (30 feet) away and determines what elements the rocks are made of.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information about Curiosity is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The left eye of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of the camera on the rover's arm, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), during the 30th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 5, 2012). 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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Camera on Curiosity's Arm as Seen by Camera on Mast

The left eye of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of the camera on the rover's arm, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), during the 30th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 5, 2012). MAHLI is one of the tools on a turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm. When this image was taken, the arm had raised the turret to about the same height as the camera on the mast. The Mastcam's left eye has a 34-millimeter focal length lens.

The image shows that MAHLI has a thin film or coating of Martian dust on it. This dust accumulated during Curiosity's final descent to the Martian surface, as the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's descent stage (or sky crane) engines were disrupting the surface nearby.

Effects of the dust were seen in the first image taken of Mars by MAHLI, on the day after landing (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15691). The MAHLI lens is protected from dust accumulation by a transparent dust cover. If the dust cover were clean, the images would appear as clear as if the cover were open.

The reddish circle near the center of the Mastcam Sol 30 image is the window of MAHLI's dust cover, with a diameter a little less than a soda can's diameter. Inside the lens, each of the nine glass lens elements and the front sapphire window are bonded or cemented in place by a red-colored silicone RTV (room temperature vulcanizing) material. This is a space-qualified "glue" that holds the lens elements in place. When the MAHLI is viewed from certain angles, this material gives one the impression that the inside of the lens is red.

The mechanism at the right in this image is Curiosity's dust removal tool, a motorized wire brush.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

PASADENA, Calif. -- After driving more than a football field's length since landing, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is spending several days preparing for full use of the tools on its arm.

Curiosity extended its robotic arm Wednesday in the first of six to 10 consecutive days of planned activities to test the 7-foot (2.1-meter) arm and the tools it manipulates.

"We will be putting the arm through a range of motions and placing it at important 'teach points' that were established during Earth testing, such as the positions for putting sample material into the inlet ports for analytical instruments," said Daniel Limonadi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., lead systems engineer for Curiosity's surface sampling and science system. "These activities are important to get a better understanding for how the arm functions after the long cruise to Mars and in the different temperature and gravity of Mars, compared to earlier testing on Earth."

Since the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft placed Curiosity inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT), the rover has driven a total of 358 feet (109 meters). The drives have brought it about one-fourth of the way from the landing site, named Bradbury Landing, to a location selected as the mission's first major science destination, Glenelg.

"We knew at some point we were going to need to stop and take a week or so for these characterization activities," said JPL's Michael Watkins, Curiosity mission manager. "For these checkouts, we need to turn to a particular angle in relation to the sun and on flat ground. We could see before the latest drive that this looked like a perfect spot to start these activities."

The work at the current location will prepare Curiosity and the team for using the arm to place two of the science instruments onto rock and soil targets. In addition, the activities represent the first steps in preparing to scoop soil, drill into rocks, process collected samples and deliver samples into analytical instruments.

Checkouts in the next several days will include using the turret's Mars Hand Lens Imager to observe its calibration target and the Canadian-built Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer to read what chemical elements are present in the instrument's calibration target.

"We're still learning how to use the rover. It's such a complex machine -- the learning curve is steep," said JPL's Joy Crisp, deputy project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory Project, which built and operates Curiosity.

After the arm characterization activities at the current site, Curiosity will proceed for a few weeks eastward toward Glenelg. The science team selected that area as likely to offer a good target for Curiosity's first analysis of powder collected by drilling into a rock.

"We're getting through a big set of characterization activities that will allow us to give more decision-making authority to the science team," said Richard Cook, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at JPL.

Curiosity is one month into a two-year prime mission on Mars. It will use 10 science instruments to assess whether the selected study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

More information about Curiosity is online at:  

http://www.nasa.gov/msl 

and  

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

Follow the mission on Facebook at:

 http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity 

and on Twitter at:

 http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

 NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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MARS: NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain

Hi My Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., 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.

This graphic shows the locations of the cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. The rover's mast features seven cameras: the Remote Micro Imager, part of the Chemistry and Camera suite; four black-and-white Navigation Cameras (two on the left and two on the right) and two color Mast Cameras (Mastcams). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Seventeen Cameras on Curiosity

This graphic shows the locations of the cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. The rover's mast features seven cameras: the Remote Micro Imager, part of the Chemistry and Camera suite; four black-and-white Navigation Cameras (two on the left and two on the right) and two color Mast Cameras (Mastcams). The left Mastcam has a 34-millimeter lens and the right Mastcam has a 100-millimeter lens.

There is one camera on the end of a robotic arm that is stowed in this graphic; it is called the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

There are nine cameras hard-mounted to the rover: two pairs of black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras in the front, another two pair mounted to the rear of the rover, (dashed arrows in the graphic) and the color Mars Descent Imager (MARDI).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If a group of tourists piled out of a transport vehicle onto the surface of Mars, they'd no doubt start snapping pictures wildly. NASA's Curiosity rover, set to touch down on the Red Planet the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT), will take a more careful approach to capturing its first scenic views.
The car-size rover's very first images will come from the one-megapixel Hazard-Avoidance cameras (Hazcams) attached to the body of the rover. Once engineers have determined that it is safe to deploy the rover's Remote Sensing Mast and its high-tech cameras, a process that may take several days, Curiosity will begin to survey its exotic surroundings.
"A set of low-resolution gray scale Hazcam images will be acquired within minutes of landing on the surface," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Once all of the critical systems have been checked out by the engineering team and the mast is deployed, the rover will image the landing site with higher-resolution cameras."
Maki led the development of Curiosity's 12 engineering cameras -- eight Hazcams at the front and back of the rover, and four Navigation cameras (Navcams) at the top of the rover's "look-out" mast. All the engineering cameras acquire black-and-white pictures from left and right stereo "eyes," which are merged to provide three-dimensional information. Half of the cameras are backups, meaning there's one set for each of the rover’s A- and B-side redundant computers.
The very first images are likely to arrive more than two hours after landing, due to the timing of NASA's signal-relaying Odyssey orbiter. They will be captured with the left and right Hazcams at the back and front of the rover, and they will not yet be full-resolution (the two images arriving on Earth first are "thumbnail" copies, which are 64 by 64 pixels in size). The Hazcams are equipped with very wide-angle, fisheye lenses, initially capped with clear dust covers. The covers are designed to protect the cameras from dust that may be kicked up during landing; they are clear just in case they don't pop off as expected.
These first views will give engineers a good idea of what surrounds Curiosity, as well as its location and tilt. "Ensuring that the rover is on stable ground is important before raising the rover's mast," said Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper at JPL. "We are using an entirely new landing system on this mission, so we are proceeding with caution."
Color pictures from the rover's Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, acquired as the rover descends to the Martian surface, will help pinpoint the rover's location. Initial images from MARDI are expected to be released Aug. 6, the day after landing. These will also be in the form of thumbnails (in the case of the science cameras, thumbnails can vary in size, with the largest being 192 pixels wide by 144 pixels high). One full-resolution image may also be returned at this time.
Additional color views of the planet's surface are expected the morning of Aug. 7 from the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, one of five devices on the rover's Inspector Gadget-like arm. The camera is designed to take close-up pictures of rocks and soil, but can also take images out to the horizon. When Curiosity lands and its arm is still stowed, the instrument will be pointed to the side, allowing it to capture an initial color view of the Gale Crater area.
Once Curiosity's mast is standing tall, the Navcams will begin taking one-megapixel stereo pictures 360 degrees around the rover as well as images of the rover deck. These cameras have medium-angle, 45-degree fields of views and could resolve the equivalent of a golf ball lying 82 feet (25 meters) away. They are designed to survey the landscape fairly quickly, and, not only can they look all around but also up and down. Navigation camera pictures are expected to begin arriving on Earth about three days after landing if the mast is deployed on schedule.
Like the Hazcams, Navcam images are used to obtain three-dimensional information about the Martian terrain. Together, they help the scientists and engineers make decisions about where and how to drive the rover and which rocks to examine with instruments that identify chemical ingredients. "A large part of the surface mission is conducted using the images returned from the cameras," said Maki.
Also, about three days after landing, the narrower field-of-view Mast Cameras (Mastcams) are expected to start snapping their first shots. These two-megapixel color cameras will reveal the rover's new home in exquisite detail. Small thumbnail versions of the pictures will be sent down first with an initial high-resolution panorama expected more than a week later.
The camera of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument will provide a telescopic view of targets at a distance.
As the mission progresses, the entire suite of cameras and science instruments will work together to hunt for clues to the mystery of Mars and help answer the long-standing puzzle of whether our next-door-neighbor planet has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover are a project of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Curiosity was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
To view Curiosity's latest images,
visit http://www.nasa.gov/
and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html .
Raw images will appear when available at
 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/ .
For information about NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission and its Curiosity rover, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars
and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .
You can follow the mission on Facebook and on Twitter at
 http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
and
 http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

 This artist's still shows how NASA's Curiosity rover will communicate with Earth during landing. As the rover descends to the surface of Mars, it will send out two different types of data: basic radio-frequency tones that go directly to Earth (pink dashes) and more complex UHF radio data (blue circles) that require relaying by orbiters. NASA's Odyssey orbiter will pick up the UHF signal and relay it immediately back to Earth, while NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will record the UHF data and play it back to Earth at a later time. mage credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech      › Larger view       › Curiosity latest images       › Latest videos

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Curiosity's Heat Shield in View

This color thumbnail image was obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover during its descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet (16 meters) from the spacecraft. It was obtained two and one-half minutes before touching down on the surface of Mars and about three seconds after heat shield separation. It is among the first color images Curiosity sent back from Mars. The resolution of all of the MARDI frames is reduced by a factor of eight in order for them to be promptly received on Earth during this early phase of the mission. Full resolution (1,600 by 1,200 pixel) images will be returned to Earth over the next several months as Curiosity begins its scientific exploration of Mars.

The original image from MARDI has been geometrically corrected to look flat.
Curiosity landed inside of a crater known as Gale Crater.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain

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  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.

"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. PDT Aug. 5, (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 (JPL) 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.

For more information on the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

and

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

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

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MARS: Celebrating Curiosity

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Celebrating Curiosity

NASA/JPL ground controllers react to learning the the Curiosity rover had landed safely on Mars and begun to send back images to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012. The rover will assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support life forms.

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Concepto artístico del momento del descenso a la superficie marciana del rover Curiosity. 
 NASA

 Curiosity Has Landed

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 (Music)

Things are looking good. Coming up on entry.

Vehicle reports entry interface.

We're beginning to feel the atmosphere as we go in here. Alright, it is reporting that we are seeing G's on the order of 11 or 12 Earth G's.

Bank reversal 2 is starting (cheering). We are now getting telemetry from Odyssey.

We should have parachute deploy around Mach 1.7.

Parachute has deployed (cheering).

We are decelerating.

Heat shield has separated, we are locked on the ground.

We're down to 90 meters per second at an altitude of 6.5 kilometer descending.

Standing by for backshell separation.

We are in powered flight (cheering).

We're at an altitude of 1 km descending.

Standing by for sky crane. Sky crane has started.

Signal from Odyssey remains strong.

Touchdown confirmed. We're safe on Mars (loud, sustained cheering).

We got thumbnails (cheering).

(Music)

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 Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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Astronomy: NASA's New Mars Rover Sends Higher-Resolution Image

Hi My Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html.


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Curiosity's Surroundings

This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on the left "eye" of a stereo pair of Hazard-Avoidance cameras on the left-rear side of the rover. The image is one-half of full resolution. The clear dust cover that protected the camera during landing has been sprung open. Part of the spring that released the dust cover can be seen at the bottom right, near the rover's wheel.

On the top left, part of the rover's power supply is visible.

Some dust appears on the lens even with the dust cover off.

The cameras are looking directly into the sun, so the top of the image is saturated. Looking straight into the sun does not harm the cameras. The lines across the top are an artifact called "blooming" that occurs in the camera's detector because of the saturation.

As planned, the rover's early engineering images are lower resolution. Larger color images from other cameras are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. - About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html.

"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," said John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from? It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our new home on Mars."

While the image is twice as big in pixel size as the first images beamed down from the rover, they are only half the size of full-resolution Hazcam images. During future mission operations, these images will be used by the mission's navigators and rover drivers to help plan the vehicle's next drive. Other cameras aboard Curiosity, with color capability and much higher resolution, are expected to be sent back to Earth over the next several days.

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 (about five kilometers) tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles (nearly 155 kilometers) 7in diameter. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech.

For more information on the mission, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/mars 

and http://www.nasa.gov/mars 

and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at 

 http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity 

and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

 

 

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

NASA
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Astronomía: Mars Express escuchará a Curiosity durante su espectacular aterrizaje en Marte

Hola amigos:  A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., El próximo día 6 de agosto, la sonda MSL de la NASA realizará una espectacular maniobra para posar al rover Curiosity sobre la superficie de Marte. La sonda Mars Express de la ESA monitorizará el progreso de la misión, grabando los datos del vuelo hasta que sus ruedas se posen sobre la superficie marciana.

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 Mars Express supports MSL 
Credits: ESA

 El próximo día 6 de agosto, la sonda MSL de la NASA realizará una espectacular maniobra para posar al rover Curiosity sobre la superficie de Marte. La sonda Mars Express de la ESA monitorizará el progreso de la misión, grabando los datos del vuelo hasta que sus ruedas se posen sobre la superficie marciana.

La misión Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) de la NASA está diseñada para llevar al rover de exploración planetaria más grande de la historia a la superficie del planeta rojo. Su aterrizaje está previsto para el día 6 de agosto por la mañana.

El aterrizaje de Curiosity en el cráter Gale marcará el comienzo de un ambicioso programa de exploración, durante el que estudiará el clima, la geología y la habitabilidad de Marte, al tiempo que recoge datos para preparar una futura misión tripulada al planeta rojo.

Cuando la nave entre en contacto con la atmósfera marciana, a una velocidad de casi 21 000 km/h, comenzarán ‘siete minutos trepidantes’, durante los que el sofisticado sistema de reentrada, descenso y aterrizaje deberá frenar a la nave hasta una velocida

 
 Una flota internacional de satélites pendiente de su aterrizaje

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 This artist's concept depicts the moment that NASA's Curiosity rover touches down onto the Martian surface.

The entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase of the Mars Science Laboratory mission begins when the spacecraft reaches the Martian atmosphere, about 81 miles (131 kilometers) above the surface of the Gale crater landing area, and ends with the rover safe and sound on the surface of Mars.

Entry, descent, and landing for the Mars Science Laboratory mission will include a combination of technologies inherited from past NASA Mars missions, as well as exciting new technologies. Instead of the familiar airbag landing systems of the past Mars missions, Mars Science Laboratory will use a guided entry and a sky crane touchdown system to land the hyper-capable, massive rover.

The sheer size of the Mars Science Laboratory rover (over one ton, or 900 kilograms) would preclude it from taking advantage of an airbag-assisted landing. Instead, the Mars Science Laboratory will use the sky crane touchdown system, which will be capable of delivering a much larger rover onto the surface. It will place the rover on its wheels, ready to begin its mission after thorough post-landing checkouts.

The new entry, descent and landing architecture, with its use of guided entry, will allow for more precision. Where the Mars Exploration Rovers could have landed anywhere within their respective 93-mile by 12-mile (150 by 20 kilometer) landing ellipses, Mars Science Laboratory will land within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) ellipse! This high-precision delivery will open up more areas of Mars for exploration and potentially allow scientists to roam "virtually" where they have not been able to before.

In the depicted scene, Curiosity is touching down onto the surface, suspended on a bridle beneath the spacecraft's descent stage as that stage controls the rate of descent with four of its eight throttle-controllable rocket engines. The rover is connected to the descent stage by three nylon tethers and by an umbilical providing a power and communication connection. When touchdown is detected, the bridle will be cut at the rover end, and the descent stage flies off to stay clear of the landing site.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information about Curiosity is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. 

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 Una flota internacional de satélites pendiente de su aterrizaje

Durante su descenso, MSL enviará datos a los dos satélites de la NASA en Marte – Mars Odyssey y Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – que grabarán la información y la reenviarán a la Tierra.

A petición de la NASA, la sonda europea Mars Express, en órbita a Marte desde el año 2003, también escuchará las señales de MSL durante estos siete minutos, registrando datos que podrían resultar de vital importancia si algo no saliese según lo previsto.
 

“Comenzamos a ajustar nuestra órbita hace varios meses, con el fin de garantizar que Mars Express tenga la fase correcta y una buena visibilidad de la trayectoria prevista para el descenso de MSL”, explica Michel Denis, Responsable de las Operaciones de la sonda Mars Express.

Los especialistas del ESOC, el Centro de Operaciones Espaciales de la ESA en Darmstadt, Alemania, han diseñado un nuevo modo de apuntamiento para que el Sistema de Comunicaciones con el Módulo de Aterrizaje, instalado a bordo de Mars Express, escuche la señal de MSL.
 

Este sistema fue diseñado para que la sonda europea se comunicase con el módulo Beagle, que descendió sobre Marte en el año 2003.

 Mars Express grabará y retransmitirá las señales de la NASA

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Diagram showing the overall geometry when Mars Express tracks signals from NASA's MSL during its arrival at Mars. 

Credits: NASA/ESA

Mars Express grabará y retransmitirá las señales de la NASA

El próximo día 6 de agosto Mars Express realizará una maniobra para empezar a escuchar la señal de MSL a las 05:10. Si todo sale según lo previsto, Odyssey retransmitirá la señal de confirmación del aterrizaje a las 05:31. Mars Express grabará todas las señales emitidas por MSL entre las 05:10 y las 05:38 (todas las horas son GMT, y pueden variar en los próximos días).

A continuación Mars Express girará de nuevo para apuntar su antena hacia la Tierra y comenzará a enviar los datos de MSL al ESOC, a través de la Antena de Espacio Profundo de 35 metros de diámetro que la ESA tiene en Nueva Norcia, Australia.

Se espera que los datos lleguen a Europa a las 06:40 GMT, y acto seguido se retransmitirán a la NASA para su análisis.
 

Las estaciones de la red ESTRACK de la ESA permanecerán a la espera

La red de estaciones de seguimiento de la ESA también participará en la maniobra, permaneciendo a la espera como redundancia de la red de espacio profundo de la NASA, preparada para recibir los datos enviados a más de 250 millones de kilómetros.

 

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Artist's impression of Mars Expres   
Credits: Alex Lutkus

“La NASA participó en la llegada de Mars Express a Marte en el año 2003, y la ESA retransmitió los datos de los rovers estadounidenses Spirit y Opportunity”, explica Manfred Warhaut, Responsable de las Operaciones de la Misión.

“Mars Express también monitorizó el descenso de la misión Phoenix de la NASA en el año 2008; compartimos nuestras redes de espacio profundo de forma habitual”.

“La cooperación técnica y científica entre la ESA y la NASA para la exploración de Marte cuenta ya con una larga tradición, y ayuda a ambas partes a mitigar los riesgos y a incrementar el retorno de los resultados científicos”.

ESA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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