NASA experienced seven minutes of terror as the Mars Rover "Curiosity" made it's gradual descent on the martian surface.
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| http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/ australia-has-links-to-success-of-landing/story-fn5fsgyc-1226444294012 |
The $2.5 billion dollar Mini Cooper sized vehicle touched down at 3:32pm EST much to the joy of the scientists and operators at the Spaceflight Operations Facility in California, USA. A complex number of stages were need to land the rover safely. The first stage occurred 10 minutes before reaching the martian atmosphere, where the cruise stage ejects and burns up. The temperature on the heat shield reaches 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit. This shield or aeroshell is the largest ever used in a Mars mission. Once the parachute deployed, scientist and operators alike held their breath as the rover descended into free fall. The parachute generated more than 29,500 kilograms of drag force. Then a series of 'Retrorockets' fired to maneuver the Rover into a safe area named the Gale Crater. Soon after, the bridle or "umbilical cord" dropped down the vehicle which also gave it vital communication and power. Once the Rover has finally got a taste of the red planet, pyrotechnic cutters severed the cables between the vehicle and the Sky Crane. The Sky crane then crash landed as planned a couple of meters away.
To see an animated version of this please visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/interactives/edlcuriosity/index-2.html
A pleased John Grunsfeld gave his thanks to the Australian scientists in Parkes, NSW which first received the signal that the Rover had landed before forwarding it to the scientists in Pasadena, California. With plenty of adversity, Grunsfeld was very relieved with precise and safe landing of the multi-billion dollar rover. "Through another spacecraft we got the indications Curiosity has safely set down on the surface." He later went on to say "The five years of blood, sweat and tears that all of these engineers and scientists across America and across the world put into the rover, all of that pent up emotion came out over the first few seconds after we heard that Curiosity had finally landed."
The event was widely covered on online media, with live 'behind the scenes' coverage of the nail biting minutes leading up to the rover's landing on Mars. Social networking site, uStream was used to stream the video which offered and interesting platform for viewers to observed the excited reactions of NASA staff when the rover landed. NASA has also launched an account on popular social networking site, Twitter, to update the public of the current activities the Rover is conducting.
More information on Australia's Involvement in the landing: http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/Pages/Archive/2012_MSLEDL/msledl_roles.html
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