Hancock County —
Early Monday morning a new rover will make an attempt to land on the red planet.
Operations to Mars have a success record similar to that of a baseball player, but successful missions have led to major discoveries about Earth’s neighbor.
Historically the planet’s red hue has captivated people across history, said Steven H. Williams, Education Public Outreach Lead for Planetary Science with NASA.
Monday’s attempt to land the car sized rover in the Gale Crater will be the first time NASA attempts to land a rover using a rocket pack mounted above the rover as a method to slow the descent. The most recent successful rover landings, Spirit and Discovery, used air bags to put the hardware safely on the planet’s surface in 2004. Both of those smaller and lighter rovers operated on the surface of the planet far beyond their planned 90 days, but pushed the weight limit of the airbags. Williams said Spirit worked for six years, and Discovery is still operating.
Curiosity has a planned operational time frame of ten years, which will be how long it will take for the rover to climb a three-mile-high pile of sediment in the center of the Gale Crater. Williams said as the rover climbs the center of the crater it will evaluate the layers in the sediment to gather information about the planet.
If successful Curiosity will be the largest and heaviest rover to land on Mars. Landing the rover will be a mission in itself. After the rover makes entry to the planet’s atmosphere the rocket platform will be employed to slow its descent. However unlike other missions that used a rocket platform below the lander, Curiosity will hang below the platform and be lowered to the surface via cables hooked to a wench. Once the rover is safely on the surface the cables will be released and the rocket platform will fly off a few miles before crashing, Williams said. While this is the first time NASA will attempt this type of landing in practice, the agency has tested that method extensively, Williams said.
“Really it’s the best way to pin point land something that weighs so much,” Williams said.
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Curiosity coming to INFINITY
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