[meteorite-list] Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 14:47:16 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201208052147.q75LlGGT019033_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-229

Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing
Jet Propulsion Laboraotry
August 05, 2012

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is healthy and right on
course for a landing in several hours that will be one of the most difficult feats of
robotic exploration ever attempted.

Emotions are strong in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., as the hours and miles race toward touchdown of the car-size Curiosity at about
10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (about 1:31 a.m. Aug. 6, EDT).

"Excitement is building while the team is diligently monitoring the spacecraft," said
Mission Manager Brian Portock of JPL. "It's natural to get anxious before a big event,
but we believe we are very well prepared."

Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques
enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible
for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a
well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well-suited for this mission
of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human
missions to Mars.

Controllers decided Sunday morning to forgo the sixth and last opportunity on the
mission calendar for a course-correction maneuver. The spacecraft is headed for its
target entry point at the top of Mars' atmosphere precisely enough without that maneuver.

Later today, mission controllers will choose whether or not to use a last opportunity
for updating onboard information the spacecraft will use during its autonomous control
of the entry, descent and landing. Parameters on a motion tracker were adjusted Saturday
for fine-tuning determination of the spacecraft's orientation during the descent.

At the critical moment of Curiosity's touchdown, controllers and the rest of the world
will be relying on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to provide immediate confirmation of a
successful landing. Odyssey will turn to point in the right direction beforehand to
listen to Curiosity during the landing. If for any reason that turn maneuver does not
work, a successful landing cannot be confirmed until more than two hours later.

The landing will end a 36-week flight from Earth and begin at two-year prime mission on
Mars. Researchers will use Curiosity's 10 science instruments to investigate whether
Martian environmental conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about
Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .
You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and
on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov/agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-229
Received on Sun 05 Aug 2012 05:47:16 PM PDT