Curiosity is getting ready to make a grand
entrance!
 
The largest rover ever sent to another planet,
will touch down in the middle of the night,
after a spectacular entry into the Martian
atmosphere and descent to the surface.
 
And liftoff of the Atlas V with Curiosity.
 
Curiosity rover made a picture-perfect launch
in November 2011.
And Now, after more than 8 months and 350
million miles, it’s time to get down to
business.
 
But first Curiosity must get down to that
surface safely.
 
When she arrives at Mars, Curiosity has seven
minutes to go from 13,000 miles an hour to
a soft landing.
These so called “seven minutes of terror”
encompass a sequence of steps that we cannot
control or even witness in real time because
signals take fourteen minutes to reach Earth
from Mars.
 
Curiosity’s heat shield burning at nearly
3000 degrees Fahrenheit will protect the rover
as she slows down rapidly.
On the way down, the spacecraft fires thrusters
to stay on target for Gail Crater.
 
Then, at 1000 miles per hour, the chute opens,
slowing the spacecraft below the speed of
sound.
Next, the heat shield is jettisoned, and Curiosity
begins looking for the surface with landing
radars that lets onboard computers know how
far it is above the ground.
 
About five minutes into entry, the spacecraft
is moving 200 miles per hour and is about
a mile up, the Descent Stage with curiosity
tucked underneath, drops from the parachute,
fires up its landing engines and slows the
system to a near stop.
 
Curiosity first gets to stretch her legs at
approximately 2 miles per hour, about 60 feet
above the ground.
With wheels deployed, Curiosity is lowered
on a Skycrane to the surface.
After touch down, the Sky Crane’s work is
done and it cuts loose to fly a safe distance
away from our newest rover on Mars.
 
As Curiosity stands up her mast, she will
give us our first close up of Gale Crater—an
impact crater 96 miles wide with a 3-mile
high mountain at its center.
The crater’s rock layers were laid down
and then eroded, showing us a cross-section
of Mars’ history.
Liquid water was necessary to form the geology
we’ve seen from orbit…and that makes Gale
Crater a great place to look for evidence
of places that could have once harbored life.
 
During her two Earth year primary mission,
Curiosity will tell us about Mars’ geology,
weather and current radiation levels, which
are key to sending humans there someday.
The rover’s laser will examine rocks and
will help find places to take samples for
the onboard chemistry lab that can identify
minerals and organic materials—the building
blocks of life.
 
This nuclear-powered, one-ton rover will take
us ever closer to examining deep layers of
history, and perhaps closer to an answer to
the ancient question: was there ever life
on Mars?
