Mars Rover Curiosity Landed

[Sea Skimmer]

Lack of splat confirmed

first image came in, shall be posted as soon as I can screencap it

[eion]

God I love watching engineers celebrate! Looked like a flawless performance from what I could discern. And they did an amazing job getting photos back so quickly. Provides a great climax for an awesome performance.

[Vehrec]

I guess the JPL standard issue snacks did their job. Everyone seems to be hugging and shaking hands on NASA TV right now.

[FSTargetDrone]

Excellent news. Go space science!

Here is what was involved for those who may be out of the loop:



An animation of the planned insertion and landing (try not to let the sounds in space bug you):

[Dr Roberts]

SCIENCE, FUCK YEAH!

The images are looking great!

[Sea Skimmer]

As near flawless as possible, estimated under 400m from desired landing site after a few hundred million miles of travel, but now the question shall be, will the rover be able to move.

[Dr Roberts]

I hope so. There are no signs at this stage of anything wrong but of course the landing has only just occured.

[Dr Roberts]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/ ... _mars.html

[FSTargetDrone]

The Curiosity Twitter feed:

Curiosity Rover ‏@MarsCuriosity

I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!

[Dr Roberts]

Still laughing at someone Screaming "Holy Shit" and could be heard on the live Nasa tv feed.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hahaha, all NASA websites have now crashed, no joke as they said this just now in the video feed, from people trying to get the raw pictures

edit: well looks like they got it back up

[erik_t]

Nothing is more encouraging, nothing at all, than the entire world bringing down NASA's servers because they care so much about what's going on.

[Patrick Degan]

Press conference now underway.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yaa spirit
yaaa endevore
yaaa curiosity, youve got big treds to fill kid

[FSTargetDrone]

yaa spirit
yaaa endevore
yaaa curiosity, youve got big treds to fill kid

Speaking of Spirit, or rather, Opportunity:

Mars Marathon: NASA's Opportunity Rover Near Finish Line of Martian Race

by SPACE.com Staff

Date: 04 August 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET

As a car-size rover named Curiosity prepares to land on Mars, another small robotic explorer — NASA's Mars rover Opportunity — is on track to set its own record: The intrepid rover has nearly completed a full marathon on the Red Planet.

The golf cart-size Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004, is just 4.2 miles (6.7 km) short of completing the first extraterrestrial marathon, according to NASA officials. A marathon spans 26.2 miles (42.1 km), with athletes at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London set to compete in an Earthly version of the race in just over a week.

As of July, the hardy Opportunity rover has explored nearly 22 miles (35.4 km) of the Martian surface. And it has been quite a journey.

"This particular marathoner had to fly about 283 million miles across space before being unceremoniously drop-bounced on the Martian surface," Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, said in a statement.

Opportunity, like its twin rover Spirit, was designed for a mere three-month mission at Mars, but both rovers far outlasted their warranties. In May 2009, Spirit became trapped in sand, and 10 months later, it fell silent. After numerous failed attempts to revive the rover, NASA declared Spirit dead in May 2011.

As part of NASA's initial goal, Opportunity was slated to travel only 1,970 feet (600 meters), making the current distance recorded on the rover's odometer all the more impressive.

Typically, Opportunity drives only 165 to 330 feet (50 to 100 meters) each day. The rover often pauses to investigate its surroundings, taking plenty of photos along the way, NASA officials said. In fact, Opportunity recently beamed back its 100,000th image, a stunning panorama of Mars.

Spirit and Opportunity were designed to search for signs of ancient water on the Red Planet. While Mars today is bone-dry and has a thin atmosphere, many researchers believe the planet was a much warmer, wetter place billions of years ago.

Opportunity first detected signs of water in deposits near the rover's landing site in Eagle Crater. As Opportunity drove around, it found more evidence of ancient Mars water. Opportunity then struck out for Endeavor Crater, a giant pit 22.5 miles (36.2 km) across.

Opportunity reached Endeavor Crater in August 2011, and the rover continued to make intriguing discoveries.

"Endeavor is surrounded by fractured sedimentary rock, and the cracks are filled with gypsum," Arvidson said. "Gypsum forms when ground water comes up and fills cracks in the ground, depositing hydrated calcium sulfate. This is the best evidence we've ever found for liquid water on Mars."

Still, Opportunity shows no sign of slowing down. Even after the rover passes the 26.2-mile marker, the team intends to keep going.

"We have no plans to stop running," Arvidson said.

That's good, because while Opportunity has been running a one-rover race, it's about to get some competition.

On Sunday, Aug. 5 PDT, NASA's newest Mars rover is due to touch down on the Red Planet. The Mars rover Curiosity, the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, is slated to land inside Mars' vast Gale Crater to search for signs that the planet could now or ever in the past host conditions that could support primitive life.

While Opportunity uses solar panels that rely on sunlight to generate power, the Mini Cooper-size Curiosity carries a nuclear power source designed to power its systems for two straight years of uninterrupted exploring. NASA hopes the rover will scale a 3-mile-high mountain at the center of Gale Crater.

Curiosity is scheduled to land on Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PDT (1:31 a.m. EDT, 0531 GMT on Monday, Aug. 6).

[CJvR]

Yay! Good show, particularly considering how many things could have gone wrong.

NASA is having a good run with their Mars rovers.

[Lord Relvenous]

First of all, "Fuck Ya!" to the science involved in the landing of Curiosity. Some awesome problem solving was implemented there. Secondly, reading about Opportunity just makes me "D'aaaw". Over the years, I've come to find the two rovers cute for some reason. In all seriousness though, the statistics of Opportunity and Spirit are a testament to what can be accomplished with quality design. I mean, every time I read about them I marvel that they lasted well over twenty four times the length of time designed for. I wish I got that kind of unexpected service life out of my car.

Lastly, this whole mission was less than $2.5 billion? I look at the defense budget and weep for what could be done with even a fraction of it.

[wautd]

I look at the defense budget and weep for what could be done with even a fraction of it.

That's the price of bringing freedom, democracy and apple pie to the Middle East (sorry, I couldn't say this with a straight face ).

But on topic, I'm relieved all went well. It's not just the money, but time invested as well. If it would have failed, then years of planning and waiting would have gone down the drain.

[TimothyC]

MRO taking a shot of the MSL as it landed:

[Eternal_Freedom]

That MRO shot is just awesome. I'll add a "science FUCK YEAH" as well.

Finally, the excsue for not doing anything today:

"Sorry, I was up all night trying to download photos from a robot that was dangled onto Mars with a skycrane."

[PeZook]

That MRO shot is just awesome. I'll add a "science FUCK YEAH" as well.

Finally, the excsue for not doing anything today:

"Sorry, I was up all night trying to download photos from a robot that was dangled onto Mars with a skycrane."

An ATOMIC POWERED robot armed with a fucking LASER CANNON.

If your boss doesn't take that excuse, he should flog himself.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I didn;t need to use the excuse as it happenned, my boss used it instead

[Hawkwings]

Guys. There's video of the descent onto the surface.

Holy fuck this is incredible.

[someone_else]

An ATOMIC POWERED robot armed with a fucking LASER CANNON.

So it's Earth invading Mars in the end. WAR OF THE WORLDS HAS BEGUN!!!

On a more serious note, heck, that's a fucking car-sized car-massed object landed gently on Mars from a rocket-powered skycrane, without human direct command. A great day for robotics.

[Kingmaker]

Guys. There's video of the descent onto the surface.

Holy fuck this is incredible.

Why is everything except for that tiny concave quadilateral blacked out? WHAT IS NASA TRYING TO HIDE?

Also, yeah, that's awesome. It's one thing to see stills of Mars, but it is quite another to watch a motion video of another planet.