The world watched anxiously in
anticipation of the Curiosity landing on Mars this morning, staying up
long past their bed times last night, hopeful, yet cautious that we
could actually pull of the most difficult landing attempt in the
history of space travel.
Curiosity represents a 2.5 Billion
Dollar effort to put a new roving laboratory on Mars, with the best
technology that money can buy, in order to learn more about our
closest planetary neighbor and uncover it’s secrets; starting with
exploration of a crater that scientists think may have evidence of
the building blocks needed to have once supported life.
Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida
on November 26 (2012), Curiosity (which is a rover designed to be roving
laboratory with an incredibly sophisticated array of sensors, cameras
and much more) had to travel over 352 Million Miles before finally
entering the Atmosphere of Mars this morning; traveling at over 17 times the
speed of sound.
Because Curiosity is much larger and
heavier than any other probe in history, getting it to the surface of
Mars safely was the most ambitious project ever attempted in the
history of interplanetary exploration, and because of the
communications delay caused by the long distance from Mars (over 14
minutes is needed at the speed of light to receive signals from
Mars), NASA knew it would have no ability to control its descent
from Earth or give it any instructions to correct problems that could
occur. So, the programming for the tricky landing sequence needed to
be perfect, with no room for error. Many people (including some of
the Scientists and Engineers that helped design it), were not sure
that it could be done.
NASA often referred to this landing as
7 Minutes of Terror before it actually took place, since 7 minutes is
the time needed to enter the Mars’ Atmosphere, deploy a parachute to
slow its descent, jettison the heat shield so that navigation radar
could help guide it to its selected landing spot, deploy a jet
powered backpack known as the “sky crane” and lower it safely
to the ground while using complex maneuvering to rocket away after
cutting the final cords to avoid colliding with it; all own its own,
with no guidance from NASA after the entry in the thin Martian
atmosphere until safely on the ground.
As Mission Controllers were joined by
scientists, engineers and dignitaries last night after the descent
started, nobody could do anything but wait to find out if man had
achieved something remarkable. Then, at 1:31AM EDT this morning,
the first signals came back from Curiosity that it had landed safely
on Mars, with everyone watching its progress erupting in cheers and
jubilation.
Many watching felt an array of emotion,
with smiles, tears of joy and an amazing feeling of pride, finally
realizing that all of the hard work had paid off and mankind had
accomplished what many thought to be impossible; landing a car size
roving laboratory on Mars safely.
This Mars rover is equipped with
sophisticated instruments capable of analyzing samples of soil, rocks
and atmosphere and beaming results back to Earth; and it even has a
laser that can target rocks from up to 23 feet away, then analyze the
spectral image produced for chemical composition. But, the amazing
array of cameras on board is what we’re waiting to see images
from; not just the low resolution images from the navigation cameras
sent by Curiosity upon landing like the below image of its shadow.
Over the next few days, diagnostics
and mast deployment will be completed, and then we’ll see higher
resolution photos being beamed back from Mars, thanks to the rover’s
17 on board cameras.
The mast alone features seven cameras:
the Remote Micro Imager that’s part of the Chemistry and Camera
suite; four black-and-white Navigation Cameras (two on the left and
two on the right) and two color Mast Cameras (Mastcams). The left
Mastcam has a 34-millimeter lens and the right Mastcam has a
100-millimeter lens.
There is also a camera on the end of a
robotic arm that is stowed known as the Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). In
addition, there are two pairs of black-and-white Hazard Avoidance
Cameras in the front, another two pair mounted to the rear of the
rover, (dashed arrows in the graphic) and the color Mars Descent
Imager (MARDI).
We live in amazing times, and we at
Steve’s can’t help but to be caught up in the jubilation over what mankind has accomplished with the safe landing of Curiosity on
Mars, as this is an awesome feat that leaves us thinking “Wow”.
The best is yet to come, as more
systems and cameras on board are deployed and become functional. So,
stay tuned, and Steve’s will update you later this week with another
article that contains more information about the cameras used by
Curiosity, as well as higher resolution color photos, once they are made available from
the Curiosity’s sophisticated Mast Cameras.
