NASA Curiosity rover to roam Mars to discover if life ever existed on the red planet
Nasa will launch its car-size Curiosity rover this week in it's most expensive and scientifically complicated bid yet to discover if there was ever life on Mars.
Curiosity, which is the prize of Nasa's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, will be launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Saturday.
'This is a Mars scientist's dream machine,' Ashwin Vasavada, MSL deputy project scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, told reporters at a press conference on November 10.
Curiosity: Nasa will launch its car size rover this Saturday, in this picture the rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of the rover's arm, which extends about 2 meters
'This rover is not only the most technically capable rover ever sent to another planet, but it's actually the most capable scientific explorer we've ever sent out.'
Curiosity started it's life designed in 2004 and at one ton it weighs five times more than its Mars rover predecessors Spirit and Opportunity.
During the 23 months after landing, Curiosity will analyze dozens of samples drilled from rocks or scooped from the ground as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover.
Mission of discovery: Highlighted Russian-built, neutron-shooting instrument on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will check for water-bearing minerals in the ground beneath the rover
Launch: Nasa graphic detailing the launch (which has now been delayed to Saturday) and the arrival back to earth
Curiosity will also carry the most advanced load of scientific gear ever used on Mars surface, a more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers.
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Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as NASAs twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003.
But it inherited many design elements from them, including six-wheel drive, a rocker-bogie suspension system and cameras mounted on a mast to help the missions team on Earth select exploration targets and driving routes.
History: Locations of landing sites for Curiosity and previous Mars rovers and landers
Landing: Oblique view of Curiositys landing area and surrounding terrain at Gale Crater, looking toward the southeast
CURIOSITY: VITAL STATISTICSt
- Rover size (excluding arm) Length 10 ft, width 9 feet
- Heat shield diameter 14.8 ft
- Design mission life on Mars 1 Mars year (98 weeks)
- Curiositys wheels are aluminu! m, 20 in ches (0.5 meter) in diameter, which is twice the size of the wheels on Spirit and Opportunity
Unlike earlier rovers, Curiosity carries equipment to gather samples of rocks and soil, process them and distribute them to onboard test chambers inside analytical instruments.
It has a robotic arm which deploys two instruments, scoops soil, prepares and delivers samples for analytic instruments and brushes surfaces.
Its assignment is to investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.
The goal of the mission is to assess whether the landing area has ever had or still has environmental conditions favorable to microbial life.
Curiosity will land near the foot of a layered mountain inside Gale crater, layers of this mountain contain minerals that form in water.
The portion of the crater floor where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments.
Size: Showing the scale of the car-size rover against a 7ft man
Selection of Gale followed consideration of more than 30 locations by more than 100 scientists participating in a series of open workshops.
Because the Gale landing site is so close to the crater wall, it would not have been considered safe if the mission were not using this precision.
Advancing the technologies for precision landing of a heavy payload will yield research benefits beyond the returns from Mars Science Laboratory itself.
Those same capabilities would be important for later missions both to pick up rocks on Mars and bring them back to Earth, and conduct extensive surface
exploration for Martian life.
NASA Televisions countdown launch commentary begins at 4:30 a.m. PST (7:30 a.m. EST) on November 26.
That also is when a NASA ! blog wil l begin providing countdown updates: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/launch/launch_blog.html
PREVIOUS MISSIONS: SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY
Mars rover Spirit spent five years, three months and 27 days on a mission of discovery across the planet before getting helplessly trapped in soil.
Now, the spacecraft's long journey has been compiled in a fascinating time-lapse video using almost 3,500 different images taken by her front-right camera.
Discovery: Spirit spent five years, three months and 27 days on a mission of discovery across the planet before getting helplessly trapped in soil
Viewers are given an overview of her mission from the moment she woke up in January 2004 to her demise in April 2009 - all in under three minutes at 24 frames per second.
This mission was completed with ease and Spirit along with her twin sibling, Opportunity, then went on to complete additional goals, exceeding even the greatest hopes for the rovers abilities and design.
Although Opportunity continues to be mobile and operational, Spirit was plagued with injuries.
The rover drove backwards for years after having one of its front wheels break before becoming permanently stuck in soft soil.
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