Absolutely amazing. The odds of error were so great, it's incredible that it made it.
Mars rover Curiosity lands safely!
Woohoo! The Mars Science Lab landed safely at 1:31 am ET...did anyone watch the NASA feed?
First image from the Curiosity rover:
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It landed mid afternoon mars time so that is a picture of its shadow.
Here is a video of the entry, descent and landing to highlight what an absolute amazing feat of engineering this is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISmWAyQxqqs
There will be some images from the descent released tomorrow as well as video hopefully, and some higher resolution images.
The next week will be testing all the equipment and getting it ready for its mission.
First image from the Curiosity rover:
It landed mid afternoon mars time so that is a picture of its shadow.
Here is a video of the entry, descent and landing to highlight what an absolute amazing feat of engineering this is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISmWAyQxqqs
There will be some images from the descent released tomorrow as well as video hopefully, and some higher resolution images.
The next week will be testing all the equipment and getting it ready for its mission.
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Here is a pic from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter during the descent.
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That parachute is an example of how difficult it is to land on mars. It weighed 100 pounds but was able to withstand 9G's of force...absolutely incredible. And this is the first time NASA was able to get an image of a landing from orbit. The timing had to be just right to get the reconaissance orbiter over the landing spot.
The rover also landed about 200 metres from the center of the landing ellipse, which is also amazing.
Comparing the lunar landings with the missions to mars is kind of silly in my opinion. The lunar landings are absolutely incredible but in no way diminish the amazing feat that it was to land MSL on Mars. They are apples and oranges with very different problems for both.
NASA actually has about a 73% success rate for missions to Mars which includes fly-bys, orbiters, landers and rovers. The Rover landings are at 100% success rate.
The overall success rate for the all countries sending missions to Mars is about 40% but that is because the Russians sucked so badly at it. They have had many many failures.
annnnd here is the third image taken from the rover:
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That parachute is an example of how difficult it is to land on mars. It weighed 100 pounds but was able to withstand 9G's of force...absolutely incredible. And this is the first time NASA was able to get an image of a landing from orbit. The timing had to be just right to get the reconaissance orbiter over the landing spot.
The rover also landed about 200 metres from the center of the landing ellipse, which is also amazing.
Comparing the lunar landings with the missions to mars is kind of silly in my opinion. The lunar landings are absolutely incredible but in no way diminish the amazing feat that it was to land MSL on Mars. They are apples and oranges with very different problems for both.
NASA actually has about a 73% success rate for missions to Mars which includes fly-bys, orbiters, landers and rovers. The Rover landings are at 100% success rate.
The overall success rate for the all countries sending missions to Mars is about 40% but that is because the Russians sucked so badly at it. They have had many many failures.
annnnd here is the third image taken from the rover:
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