NASA's Curiosity Rover to Land on Mars This Weekend

I hope you are joking....

The 2 small rovers that safely landed on mars and sent back pictures for the past few years where American. I don't think anyone has landed something on Mars except the US.

Yeah, US and the Soviet Union (USSR) has so far been the only ones able to successfully land anything on Mars.

ESA came close with Beagle 2 but was unsuccessful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_landing

2.27m off target DAMN thats impressive

That's so incredible on the accuracy of that landing.
 
I hope China starts sending people to the moon and stuff. Would be great to have another space race.

I agree. Im still bothered that the USA hasnt been back to the moon in over what 50 years now?....I mean that bothers me....

But it all comes down to politics....money...etc etc
 
I agree. Im still bothered that the USA hasnt been back to the moon in over what 50 years now?....I mean that bothers me....

But it all comes down to politics....money...etc etc

We didn't figure out how to do it the first time! :p
 
YES! This is freaking incredible :D

Great day for humanity, science and NASA´s future! Can not wait to follow Curiosity´s roving.
 
Nasa people just said new pics in 20 minutes!!!

The images should be posted here shortly: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

Not too long ago-- about 5 to 10 minutes ago-- Curiosity sent back two images at a higher resolution of 512x512 from the hazard cams.

One of the two pictures is a very good confirmation the rover has landed right where it should be-- inside Gale Crater. You could see the rim of the crater out in the distance from the rear haz cam.
 
The images should be posted here shortly: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

Not too long ago-- about 5 to 10 minutes ago-- Curiosity sent back two images at a higher resolution of 512x512 from the hazard cams.

One of the two pictures is a very good confirmation the rover has landed right where it should be-- inside Gale Crater. You could see the rim of the crater out in the distance from the rear haz cam.

Yea I was watching the live feed from JPL. Pretty impressive how accurate they got the landing.

the 512x512 pic was amazing....Cant wait to see it go all out on pics.
 
Yea I was watching the live feed from JPL. Pretty impressive how accurate they got the landing.

the 512x512 pic was amazing....Cant wait to see it go all out on pics.

I can't wait for the higher resolution color images, hopefully by tomorrow or in the week. That's 1600x1200 resolution images.
 
I can't wait for the higher resolution color images, hopefully by tomorrow or in the week. That's 1600x1200 resolution images.

Hell yea! Lookin foward to it for sure.

Ill be honest.....After all the crap that could of went wrong with the landing. I was shocked to learn it was a perfect landing and the rover is A ok....Did not expect that.
 
Hell yea! Lookin foward to it for sure.

Ill be honest.....After all the crap that could of went wrong with the landing. I was shocked to learn it was a perfect landing and the rover is A ok....Did not expect that.

I was on edge the entire time. I was afraid something might go wrong such as the cap not being removed or the parachute tearing off or the sky crane malfunctioning.

Then when I heard that the cruise stage separation was complete, that was the first sign of good news. It's starting the descent...

Next came the parachutes being deployed just perfectly and the chatter from the people in charge of EDL (entry, descent and landing) talking about the capsule's and rover's descent speeds slowing down. Even better news.

And then the sky crane deploying and just moments later telemetry from the rover, the very first set of news that it landed safely-- I was ecstatic.

Everything worked like clockwork from entry to descent to landing. Every single step worked as it did in their simulations. The moment Odyssey started to receive signals from Curiosity, I was in tears. NASA's engineers and the people behind it deserve every single amount of praise for successfully launching and landing the largest and most important scientific rover ever sent to Mars.
 
I was on edge the entire time. I was afraid something might go wrong such as the cap not being removed or the parachute tearing off or the sky crane malfunctioning.

Then when I heard that the cruise stage separation was complete, that was the first sign of good news. It's starting the descent...

Next came the parachutes being deployed just perfectly and the chatter from the people in charge of EDL (entry, descent and landing) talking about the capsule's and rover's descent speeds slowing down. Even better news.

And then the sky crane deploying and just moments later telemetry from the rover, the very first set of news that it landed safely-- I was ecstatic.

Everything worked like clockwork from entry to descent to landing. Every single step worked as it did in their simulations. The moment Odyssey started to receive signals from Curiosity, I was in tears. NASA's engineers and the people behind it deserve every single amount of praise for successfully launching and landing the largest and most important scientific rover ever sent to Mars.

Exactly. The thing was 1 ton.....that is not 1 easy thing to land on another planet.

Hopefully this paves the way to Mankind to land on Mars. Bring on Doom 4!!!
 
I hope they find the Prothean device and jump start humanity to the stars
 
What these folks just did was nothing short of historic. Landing a probe like this was an engineering marvel and the guys who worked on this project deserve all the kudos in the world. Well done guys, well done. I would be in tears if I was involved in this.
 
I was on edge the entire time. I was afraid something might go wrong such as the cap not being removed or the parachute tearing off or the sky crane malfunctioning.

Then when I heard that the cruise stage separation was complete, that was the first sign of good news. It's starting the descent...

Next came the parachutes being deployed just perfectly and the chatter from the people in charge of EDL (entry, descent and landing) talking about the capsule's and rover's descent speeds slowing down. Even better news.

And then the sky crane deploying and just moments later telemetry from the rover, the very first set of news that it landed safely-- I was ecstatic.

Everything worked like clockwork from entry to descent to landing. Every single step worked as it did in their simulations. The moment Odyssey started to receive signals from Curiosity, I was in tears. NASA's engineers and the people behind it deserve every single amount of praise for successfully launching and landing the largest and most important scientific rover ever sent to Mars.


I was so proud and happy for these guys. They did an amazing job.
 
I'm just impressed at the balls it took to attempt a landing like this. I mean yeah it's the only way to safely put 1-ton of sensitive equipment on the surface, but damn the consequences of failure are so high! The fact that someone stood up at the round table and said "you know what guys? We should do it LIKE THIS" and proceeds to illustrate an elaborate powered landing concept, and the fact that everyone else nodded their heads and recognized that this is the only way to do it, so you might as well do it right. The dedication it took to make sure to cover every possible variable to ensure a successful landing is astounding. Nobody did this for money. Everyone involved did this out of pure heart. They'd probably all work on it for free if they could. This is the kind of attitude that moves civilization forward, aspiring for the greater good, and not simply for one's own self-interest.
 
Yeah, US and the Soviet Union (USSR) has so far been the only ones able to successfully land anything on Mars.

Define success. The Russians only had one successful soft-landing, and the probe died about 14 seconds later without transmitting any useful data...
 
The dedication it took to make sure to cover every possible variable to ensure a successful landing is astounding. Nobody did this for money. Everyone involved did this out of pure heart. They'd probably all work on it for free if they could. This is the kind of attitude that moves civilization forward, aspiring for the greater good, and not simply for one's own self-interest.

Indeed, up to this point it has been a great mission. The extra effort I'm sure was done above & beyond what was "payed for by the tax payer" may be hard to quantify, but definitely adds up in the end.

The landing was a very tense few minutes! Great stuff ahead.
 
LOL.. Good response.

I thought the same thing when I saw the youtube video's on it. Honestly, search
UFO and Olympics 2012 and watch the footage and related video's. Here is a few:

Those are UFOs though! As it's not clear what they are. :D
 
I agree. Im still bothered that the USA hasnt been back to the moon in over what 50 years now?....I mean that bothers me....

But it all comes down to politics....money...etc etc

Going back to moon *IS* a waste of money. There's very little that we can do there. Setting up a base on the moon would be a middle finger to space exploration.

Mars is a million times more interesting, way more habitable and easier to explore...
 
Define success. The Russians only had one successful soft-landing, and the probe died about 14 seconds later without transmitting any useful data...

And it was 40+ years ago. First one from the US that landed successfully was in 1997, 28 years later. Oh, and remember all those successful US rockets/spaceships back in the 60's? Yep.
 
And it was 40+ years ago. First one from the US that landed successfully was in 1997, 28 years later. Oh, and remember all those successful US rockets/spaceships back in the 60's? Yep.

I think you're confused, Pathfinder was not the first US landing on Mars. Viking 1 and 2 landed in 1976, just 3 years after the failed Russian 'Mars 3' probe I was talking about.

I don't get the second comment either... the US was hugely successful at rocketry in the 1960's. The Mercury program (1959-1963), Gemini program (1962-1966), and Apollo program (1961-1972) all accomplished their objectives with no in-flight loss of life. The US had gotten past blowing stuff up on the launchpad/on the way up to orbit in the 50's.

The Russian N-1 Moon rockets all crashed or disintegrated less than 2 minutes into flight, the Russians didn't have anything comparable to the Saturn V until the Energia (1987), and they only launched 2 of them.
 

(Click for larger size.)

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

This is a great picture of Curiosity's parachute deployed on its way to the landing site. It was taken by the Mars Orbiter orbiting overhead. :D

So fricken sick, what I would have given to be able to see it decend and land. Sucks they couldnt have sent a camera probe for the purposes of documenting this ahead of time :D Imagine how awesome that thing would have looked in action.
 
Going back to moon *IS* a waste of money. There's very little that we can do there. Setting up a base on the moon would be a middle finger to space exploration.

Mars is a million times more interesting, way more habitable and easier to explore...

I disagree. Mining the moon would be incredibly beneficial and having your fuel already in space saves a lot of trouble. It would also make a good proving ground before going to mars. It could also make going to mars a lot cheaper in the long run.
 
Woot!! So happy it made it!! Best money we've ever spent on space exploration. Can't wait until we start getting data back on all the tests its going to start performing.

It really is too bad that the couldn't have gotten a good HD camera/telescope setup in advance of it landing to get pictures of it. Would have been awesome! Oh well, just a testament to the great engineers that flew it all that way and landed it safely.

I wish, wish, wish they would take 10% of the fricken defense budget and divert it to NASA, or start granting it out to public companies in the space exploration biz. Something to keep the imagination and wonder of the universe alive for a world where most can't even see the stars because of light pollution anymore.
 
According to today's news conference at around 9 AM my time, they're hoping to have the high-gain antenna up and running by today. This will be followed by another news conference later in the evening. That way Curiosity will be able to contact Earth directly instead of relying on Odyssey or the MRO above. The MastCam will be deployed within the week and the first high resolution color photographs will follow immediately after. They want to be sure those work first then they'll check the rest of the systems which will take a month.

September at the earliest they'll begin moving Curiosity a few meters and start the science missions.
 
what a waste of Billions of Dollars when we need to fix OUR Country and help our own ppl out with NO jobs and GREAT Depression were in to see if they might have been something out there which hasnt been proved since time began. God made it all thats a FACT and man cant except it. GOD Help you ALL

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

You are worthy of the utmost ridicule, contempt, and derision.
 
c88b2f3953846.jpg
 
what a waste of Billions of Dollars when we need to fix OUR Country and help our own ppl out with NO jobs and GREAT Depression were in to see if they might have been something out there which hasnt been proved since time began. God made it all thats a FACT and man cant except it. GOD Help you ALL

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Please read carefully. Study it. Learn something.
 
I disagree. Mining the moon would be incredibly beneficial and having your fuel already in space saves a lot of trouble. It would also make a good proving ground before going to mars. It could also make going to mars a lot cheaper in the long run.
Its only beneficial if the cost of a mining operation on the moon is lower than the cost of building and fueling things here on land and sending them into orbit.

I can't imagine how expensive it would be to setup a self-sustaining mining operation on the moon. The ultra-fine dust gets into everything, the low gravity has health effects on people, there would be nothing for them to do so you have to ferry people back and forth all the time, and I'm not sure what they would do about clean water, sewage, etc. and producing enough food and entertainment and the like to sustain such an operation.

Here on Earth if your drill bit dies, big deal, you put on another one. In the vacuum of the moon and with the need to likely ship up a replacment from Earth, that's a big expense and downtime.
 
Back
Top