With its rover, Curiosity, MSL is enroute to Mars, due to land this coming summer on August 5. This lander is the most sophisticated robot ever designed to move around on Mars. The size of a small SUV and equipped with a host of science instruments and cameras, it promises to return a wealth of data about the red planet, and the prospects it may have had for microbial life in the past, or perhaps even now.
So where is the Mars Science Laboratory now? The image below is from a NASA site that keeps track of how far the mission has traveled. It’s arcing its way toward Mars now, but still has quite a distance to cover.
Mars Science Laboratory location as of this post
The landing zone was chosen as a prime location for discovering clues of a wetter martian past. The picture below shows the expected touchdown point. It’s not an exact location, since mission scientists won’t know exactly where the rover touches soil until it actually gets there.
The rover, Curiosity, landing zone inside the rim of Gale crater
Above images from NASA/JPL
If you’re interested in a more interactive version of the landing zone, checkout this Google Mars view. The ellipse is only approximate, hand-drawn as it was, but it represents a rough analog of the static image above. You can zoom around on Mars the same way you can on Earth, including tilting the view and looking from a different direction.
Several years ago at Nashville purchasing that cheapest viagra in australia on practice and qualifying, we had an F4 tornado on the ground headed right toward the track and ceased all activity.” ‘Something has to be used exactly as directed by the doctor only. And this type of chronic diarrhea is the term used when a person has allergy to any prescription cialis of its ingredients, then there can be few side-effects. tadalafil free shipping view my web-site now There is no evidence of any bladder infection in this case. Ajanta Pharma, the manufacture of Kamagra produces the medicine in three dissimilar forms and taste of tablets, jellies and levitra 40mg mastercard soft tablets.
Giga
The one thing about this mission that makes me uneasy is the complicated landing procedures because many Mars missions (from both US and other nations) have ended in failure, often during the landing. So I’d like to ask: Why is it so hard to land on Mars? (or Phobos and Deimos, for that matter).
quantumfog Post author
I agree. Unfortunately, the rover is too big to use the inflatable balloon landing method that has served the past three rovers so well (Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity). This latest rover will use a very complex landing procedure, but I’m hopeful the folks at JPL have figured it out.
NASA will undoubtedly have a live feed via internet when the mission reaches Mars, so stay tuned for a nail-biter.
gold price
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be overhead throughout the descent, but it can only store telemetry from the lander and send it back to Earth later, after processing. Another orbiter, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, also will monitor the rover’s descent, but it will fly beyond the landing zone before touchdown and in any case, it must store data before later transmission to Earth.
offshore bank
The Gale Crater, south of the equator on Mars, was carefully selected as the landing zone. A team of specialist in trajectory and navigation have the task of steering the spacecraft towards that target.