Curiosity Has Landed on Mars

[Juice]

The whole "sky hook" thing seemed crazy to me too...but it seems to have worked.

 

[Punjabbi Munda]

Well to be fair, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, and Finland were also part of the project, and provided some of the instruments.

The main engineer whos computer program guided the rover,when it wasn't in nasa's control,was designed by an Indian,Anita sengupta.
anita sengupta - Google Search
It took the rover through the '7 minutes of terror'

 

[gambit]

Now this is the kind of thing we'd like the Americans to be doing, rather than invading other nations. Congratulations!

That is a false dichotomy. It is not an 'either-or' situation. We can both whether you like it or not and THAT is the real dichotomy.

Let this be another lesson to the fools who criticized the Space Shuttle is a 'failure' based upon ridiculous arguments like money, accidents and the illogical 'no one has done another version since then' argument.

Look at the size of this probe, its landing method and how far did it had to go. Anybody got anything larger? How about a better landing method? Who is going to go further and when will that adventure be? So by the 'Space Shuttle is a failure' arguments, this latest Mars probe lander is a spectacular fail.

 

[Solomon2]

Celebrating Curiosity

NASA/JPL ground controllers react to learning the the Curiosity rover had landed safely on Mars and begun to send back images to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012. The rover will assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support life forms. link blog NASA TV

 

[OrionHunter]

Big $2 billion dollar drama! Even if they find water and primitive life forms on Mars, do you for a moment think that NASA would let the secret out? They've known about the existence water on Mars since the Spirit and Opportunity landed there, but brushed important findings under the carpet. Why? Because it goes against religious percepts.

Imagine what would happen if they announced that there is life on Mars! Because it is common religious belief that Earth is the only planet in the Universe having life that came about due to sheer accident!

If there's life on Mars then it can be safely concluded that there are billions of planets out there harboring life, many so advanced that they could be millions of years ahead of us in technology! Remember, the Solar System is just 4 billion years old. Countless other Solar Systems in the universe could have evolved billions of years earlier than us since the known age of the universe is 15 billion years.

I can't imagine meeting up with advanced beings, millions of years older than our civilization! Can you? It's mind boggling to even think of it! But Mars could have primitive life deep underground near the poles where there are traces of water. Here's an image that shows plenty of ice on Mars' North Pole:

And here's an image taken by Opportunity. Looks like a fresh snowfall on Mars, what? (I have auto color corrected the original NASA image that showed blue sand!!)

And here's the original NASA image released to the public...

So why is NASA trying to hide the fact that there is water on Mars all these years? Now you know!

Cheers!

 

[ChennaiSKing]

Great Job NASA - you are always the pioneer in modern space exploration....

 

[Solomon2]

Big $2 billion dollar drama! Even if they find water and primitive life forms on Mars, do you for a moment think that NASA would let the secret out?...

Anyone checking the history of NASA's Mars projects since the Viking mission would quickly find out otherwise. You're just prejudiced - or projecting your own culture onto the U.S.A.

Sucks to be you, I guess.

 

[tvsram1992]

Im curious to know how curiosity works . $2.5billion

 

[Solomon2]

Shocking!

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover. Curiosity and its parachute are in the center of the white box. The rover is descending toward the etched plains just north of the sand dunes that fringe "Mt. Sharp." From the perspective of the orbiter, the parachute and Curiosity are flying at an angle relative to the surface, so the landing site does not appear directly below the rover.

The parachute appears fully inflated and performing perfectly. Details in the parachute, such as the band gap at the edges and the central hole, are clearly seen. The cords connecting the parachute to the back shell cannot be seen, although they were seen in the image of NASA's Phoenix lander descending, perhaps due to the difference in lighting angles. The bright spot on the back shell containing Curiosity might be a specular reflection off of a shiny area. Curiosity was released from the back shell sometime after this image was acquired.

This view is one product from an observation made by HiRISE targeted to the expected location of Curiosity about one minute prior to landing. It was captured in HiRISE CCD RED1, near the eastern edge of the swath width (there is a RED0 at the very edge). This means that the rover was a bit further east or downrange than predicted.

The image scale is 13.2 inches (33.6 centimeters) per pixel .

HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.

 

[Audio]

Great photo. Seems like NASA didn't want to take any chances and in the event of a failure they would have some sort of material to analyze, crash investigation style.

Shame there aren't any pictures of the actual separation, landing and fly-off of the landing module.

 

[sajan]

Where is isro2222? Had he been abducted by aliens?

 

[TruthSeeker]

Very, very interesting. No Chinese member comments .... Silence .....

 

[prototype]

Now we have a real justification why US is ahead by any others by decades....When nation's like China thought they can compete with US, this is the challenge they throw.

 

[harpoon]

$2.5 billion for Science.....

 

[anon45]

Great photo. Seems like NASA didn't want to take any chances and in the event of a failure they would have some sort of material to analyze, crash investigation style.

Shame there aren't any pictures of the actual separation, landing and fly-off of the landing module.

Here is a video of the last bit of the landing!!

starts from heat shield sep
Curiosity's Descent - YouTube