'Curiosity' lands on Mars

NASA dubs the period from rovers entry to touchdown the 7 minutes of terror

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa’s) ‘Curiosity’ rover landed safely on Mars, after a 352 million-mile journey and harrowing plunge through the planet’s atmosphere dubbed “7 Minutes of Terror.”

The vehicle, loaded with the most-sophisticated instruments ever used off Earth, touched down at 1:32 am New York time. Scientists developed the $2.5 billion mission to help determine whether Mars has an environment that can support life.

Curiosity landed at a site called Gale Crater, at the foot of a 3.4 mile (5.5 kilometer) high mountain. The crater spans 96 miles, an area about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, according to Nasa. Because of its low elevation, water on Mars would probably have pooled in the crater. Orbiting probes suggest there may be water-related clay and minerals. Curiosity is loaded with equipment to allow analysis of air, rock and soil samples.

A CURIOUS DESCENT
Nasa’s Curiosity rover, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on November 26 last year, landed safely on Mars, after a 566-million km journey

• $2.5 bn mission developed to help determine whether Mars’ has an environment that can support life
   
• Landed at a site called Gale Crater, at the foot of a 3.4 mile (5.5 km) high mountain
   
• Rover’s descent was tracked by the Mars orbiter Odyssey
   
• Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity
   
• Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental composition of rocks from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars
   
• Will use a drill and scoop at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors
   
• Samples will be then sieved and parcelled out into analytical laboratory instruments within the rover

 

“I’m thrilled,” said Bobby Braun, a professor of space technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was Nasa’s chief technologist in 2010-2011. “I’m ecstatic. I can barely talk because I’ve been screaming. We were tense here, but the mission went like clockwork.”

Hundreds of spectators, many carrying cameras, gathered in sultry weather in New York’s Times Square to witness the event, which was broadcast on a large electronic screen overhead. The crowd erupted into applause and chanted “Nasa! Nasa!” when Curiosity’s safe landing was confirmed. An electronic sign below carried the message: “Congratulations Curiosity on your successful landing on Mars.”

“I wanted to see the landing in an intensely social atmosphere,” said Max Juren, 31, from Texas, wearing a tinfoil hat for the occasion. “I would rather see billions of dollars spent on exploration than a single cent on war. I am happy they succeeded. I was nervous.”

The one-ton rover touched down after hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack.

The descent was tracked by the Mars orbiter Odyssey, which was able to relay to scientists on earth black-and-white fisheye images of the planet received by the Canberra, Australia, antenna station of NASA’s Deep Space Network.

“It’s a big step outwards, and the only place we can look is out,” said Jim O’Reilly, 20, from Connecticut, who joined the crowd at Times Square.

NASA dubbed the period from entry to touchdown the “7 Minutes of Terror” in a video describing the event. The spacecraft entered the atmosphere and decelerated quickly, deploying a parachute. It then separated into parts, one of which was a hover craft with rockets. “Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. President Barack Obama laid out a vision for sending humans to Mars in the mid-2030s, “and on Monday’s landing marks a significant step toward achieving this goal,” Bolden said.

The craft lowered Curiosity to the ground using a “sky crane,” and then flew away. The new system replaced airbags used in previous missions to lessen ground impact because Curiosity was too heavy to use them. A 14-minute communication lag exists between the vehicle and the control center 154 million miles away on Earth, where scientists monitored transmissions from the craft. By the time NASA got word the device had entered the atmosphere, Curiosity had already landed.

“Some people have been working on this for 10 years,” said Braun, the space researcher, in a telephonic interview from Mission Control in California.

“This is an asset for the whole world, so we’re going to be careful.”

Curiosity returned its first view of Mars, a wide-angle scene of rocky ground near the front of the rover. More images are anticipated in the next several days as the mission blends observations of the landing site with activities to configure the rover for work and check the performance of its instruments and mechanisms, NASA said.

The rover is currently in a safe state, Braun said. It will be checked out and deployed over several days.

“The cameras have to be calibrated,” he said. “This is an elaborate, complex machine.”

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, according to NASA. Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental composition of rocks from a distance.

The rover will use a drill and scoop at the end of its robotic arm to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover, NASA said.

The Mars Science Laboratory, the formal name of the mission deploying the Curiosity rover, was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on November 26, 2011. After Curiosity, the only planned US mission to Mars is an atmospheric orbiter meant to launch next year.