|
I checked back several pages and was very surprised to see there isn't already a thread covering this, seeing as goons love space stuff. Last November NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory to study potential habitability for future human missions along with martian climate and geology. This work will be carried out by the largest extra-terrestrial rover ever built, dubbed Curiosity. It is twice as long and over five times heavier than the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and a hell of a lot more instruments to poke around Mars. The landing procedure is almost straight out of science fiction. It has been hurdling from Earth at around 13,000 miles per hour and will enter the atmosphere later tonight. As it does, atmospheric drag will slow it down to around 1000 miles per hour, after which a hugeass parachute will deploy to slow it down further. After a certain speed and altitude is reached, the rover and descent stage will drop out of it's shell and use rocket thrusters to further slow the craft down. The rover is too heavy to have an airbag landing like previous rovers so instead the descent craft will lower the rover onto the surface using a sky crane and then fly off a safe distance so as not to create a dust storm that could damage instruments or simply fall on it. The Wikipedia article covers it far better than I could and in great detail. The landing should happen around 12:31am central time (10:31 pacific, 1:31 east coast). I doubt this will receive anything but a 30 second blip on the national news but you'll be able to watch a live stream here, here, and here (with mission audio only, no commentary). Definitely a very exciting night. Watch your Breaking Bad then switch on a live stream and marvel in how awesome science is! Do we happen to have any goons that are involved with this project? It would be fantastic if you'd chime in, or just anybody in general who can give more details than what's already on wiki or the JPL website.
|
| # ? Aug 5, 2012 21:26 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2013 02:28 |
|
|
It's talked about a lot in this thread http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3493847 The landing might deserve its own, though.
|
| # ? Aug 5, 2012 21:28 |
|
|
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3499840 Bummer, you're 8 minutes late.
|
| # ? Aug 5, 2012 21:29 |
|
|
Gah! I'll just close this one, his has pictures.
|
| # ? Aug 5, 2012 21:32 |
|
