NASA Curiosity Rover On Mars

As I mentioned in my previous post that this week is full of awesome events! On August 6, 2012, NASA announced the successful landing of Curiosity rover on Mars after a 354 million miles journey launched on November 26, 2011.


Curiosity is the fourth NASA unmanned surface rover sent to Mars. It is nuclear-powered and equipped with scientific laboratory. It is about twice as long and five times as heavy as previous Mars exploration rover. It carries over 10 times the mass of scientific instruments with the scientific goals to determine Mars habitability, climate, and useful preparation for future manned mission to Mars.

One of the early focus on rover Curiosity is its entry, descent and landing process. As landing a large mass on Mars is highly challenging due to its thin atmosphere for parachutes to be effective. At the same time, the entire landing process requires rover to acts autonomously with pre-loaded software and sequences since the communication time between the rover and control station at earth is longer than the landing process. Here is the landing sequence of the Mars rover. Click picture for larger image.

Here is a video description of the landing process.

Here is a clip showing the mix anxiety and exhilaration mood at the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control center in California during the Curiosity rover landing,