[meteorite-list] NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing

From: Ed Deckert <edeckert_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 16:18:59 -0400
Message-ID: <6BFEF19B62614672869787A8E0C03405_at_MAINPC>

WOW! A big Congratulations to all of the folks at NASA and JPL for a job
EXTREMELY well done! Plus, this photo is the icing on the cake! I look
forward to hearing about, and seeing all that Curiosity is discovers on her
mission.

And a big thanks to Ron Baalke for these wonderful update reports. We
greatly appreciate you, Ron!!!

Ed


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 3:53 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of
Landing


>
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-232
>
> NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> August 06, 2012
>
> PASADENA, Calif. - An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science
> Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
> captured the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot-wide (almost
> 16 meter) parachute as it descended towards its landing site at Gale
> Crater.
>
> "If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we
> probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah
> Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion
> Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been
> working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the
> spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to
> realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."
>
> The image of Curiosity on its parachute can be found at:
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15978b.html
>
> The image was taken while MRO was 211 miles (340 kilometers) away from
> the parachuting rover. Curiosity and its rocket-propelled backpack,
> contained within the conical-shaped back shell, had yet to be deployed.
> At the time, Curiosity was about two miles (three kilometers) above the
> Martian surface.
>
> "Guess you could consider us the closest thing to paparazzi on Mars,"
> said Milkovich. "We definitely caught NASA's newest celebrity in the act."
>
> Curiosity, NASA's latest contribution to the Martian landscape, landed
> at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 on Aug. 6, EDT) near the foot of a
> mountain three miles tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles in diameter.
>
> In other Curiosity news, one part of the rover team at the JPL continues
> to analyze the data from last night's landing while another continues to
> prepare the one-ton mobile laboratory for its future explorations of
> Gale Crater. One key assignment given to Curiosity for its first full
> day on Mars is to raise its high-gain antenna. Using this antenna will
> increase the data rate at which the rover can communicate directly with
> Earth. The mission will use relays to orbiters as the primary method for
> sending data home, because that method is much more energy-efficient for
> the rover.
>
> 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 rocks' elemental composition from a
> distance. Later in the mission, 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 to 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,
> http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity
>
> HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument
> was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The
> Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and the Mars Exploration Rover
> Project are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
> Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a
> division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed
> Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter.
>
> For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see
> http://www.nasa.gov/mro .
>
> Guy Webster / DC Agle 8180-354-6278 / 818-393-9011
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov
>
> Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
> NASA Headquarters, Washington
> Dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
>
> 2012-232
>
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Received on Mon 06 Aug 2012 04:18:59 PM PDT