That is an amazing video. Watching it, I had to think "so when does it search for Sarah Connor"? Joe is right, there is an awful lot that can go wrong. But there's also a lot of payoff if it goes right. Has such a complicated landing ever been attempted before? I know I've read about that style with the skyhook, but that was years ago and it was definitely in the design phase at the time. Dan On Jul 6, 2012, at 4:53 PM, nathan swenson wrote:
This is my favorite JPL-marketing video about the landing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqdoXwLBT8&feature=player_embeddedI love the top-most comment on the video: "this is how my grandma does parallel parking".
A nice writeup about the descent: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/06290700-how-curiosity-...
This is an amazing piece of engineering. I hope it works well. Nate Swenson
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Message: 4 Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2012 16:23:03 -0600 From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Curiosity Message-ID: <F4BC4181-A616-4A00-990E-53F3B096A30C@wirelessbeehive.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
For those who might like to share the landing experience with others I (wearing my NASA hat) am working with the U of U Department of Physics and Astronomy to host an MSL landing event on the U campus.
The event will feature a live satellite link from NASA/JPL.
Want to drive a Mars rover? The event will also feature a about half size rover folks will be able to drive.
SLAS has been invited to participate with a mini-star party before the landing (subject to be discussed at next week's SLAS board meeting) so if that can be worked out participants may have a chance of seeing Mars through telescopes a couple of hours before the landing.
The landing is scheduled to occur late Sunday night, 5 August at about 2319 MDT. However since Mars is currently about 12 light minutes from Earth signals from the lander sitting on the surface will not reach Earth until about 2331.
Here's a NASA YouTube video on the mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudlaGh1A0o
More details to follow as they become available.
patrick
On 06 Jul 2012, at 14:27, Rodger C. Fry wrote:
It is now one month until soft gentle landing or catastrophe. I don't know about anyone else but I am anticipating this with great enthusiasm. So far, everything has gone very well and slightly more precise than may have been predicted. Because of this, NASA has narrowed down the target area of the landing site.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this is going to be a winner!
Rodger C. Fry
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