[meteorite-list] Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving (MSL)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 20:46:21 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201205120346.q4C3kLSS022778_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-135

Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 11, 2012

Team members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission took
a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert this week to
improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity,
currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

The test rover that they
put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of
Curiosity's mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that
it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser
gravity of Mars.

Information collected in these tests on windward and
downwind portions of dunes will be used by the rover team in making decisions
about driving Curiosity on dunes near a mountain in the center of Gale
Crater.

First, however, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, launched
Nov. 26, 2011, must put Curiosity safely onto the ground. Safe landing
on Mars is never assured, and this mission will use innovative methods
to land the heaviest vehicle in the smallest target area ever attempted
on Mars. Advances in landing heavier payloads more precisely are steps
toward eventual human missions to Mars.

Curiosity is on track for landing
the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early on Aug. 6, Universal Time and
EDT) to begin a two-year prime mission. Researchers plan to use Curiosity
to study layers in Gale Crater's central mound, Mount Sharp. The mission
will investigate whether the area has ever offered an environment favorable
for microbial life.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 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/msl 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
818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-135
Received on Fri 11 May 2012 11:46:21 PM PDT