Science Laboratory (MSL)
a long-range, long-duration, roving
Its name is Curiosity Rover. It is part of
NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
It is the next logical step
beyond the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers and will
continue to study
geology from the surface
Curiosity's First Scoop & Mars Bright Object.
On the mission's 61st Martian day (sol) (7
Oct, 2012) NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its soil scoop for the
first time, collecting a scoopful of sand and powdery material at
the 'Rocknest' site.
The bright object visible on the ground
(circled in red) was seen in one of the scoop photos and is
believed to be something from the mars rover hardware, not Martian
Science Laboratory rover
has six wheels and cameras mounted
on a mast. It is twice as
long and three times as heavy as the Mars Exploration Rovers
Spirit and Opportunity. It is nearly the size of a Volkswagen
Beetle. The rover will be capable of reaching a destination that
is 20 to 40 kilometers (12 to 24 miles) long, about the size of a
small crater or wide canyon and three to five times smaller than
previous landing zones on Mars.
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California
manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project.
Curiosity Rover - Robot Geologist and Chemist in One!
Science Laboratory operates under its own power, nuclear power
source. It generates electricity to power the science
instruments and other systems and allows the rover to operate
at higher and lower latitudes than those that might be traversed
by a similarly equipped rover dependent on solar and battery
aim of the mission is:
martian rocks and soils in greater detail than ever before
in order to
understand the geologic processes that formed and modified them.
2. To collect
and crush martian rock and soil samples and distribute them to
on-board test chambers for chemical analysis. It will carry a
suite of scientific instruments to identify organic compounds such
as proteins and amino acids and assess Mars as a potential habitat
life, in the past or present.
3. To study the
martian atmosphere and determine the distribution and circulation
of water and carbon dioxide, whether frozen, liquid or gaseous.
To identify features such as atmospheric gases that may be
associated with biological activity.
was delivered by next-generation landers using precision landing
systems. In the final minutes before touchdown, the
spacecraft activated its parachute and retro rockets before
lowering the rover package to the
Mars Surface on a tether (similar to
the way a skycrane helicopter moves a large object).
site of the Mars Science Laboratory mission was Gale Crater, Mars.
MSL is expected
to remain active after landing for one Mars year (687 Earth days -
two Earth years). NASA
selected the Gale Crater landing site on the basis of highly detailed
images sent to Earth by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and in addition to data from previous mars missions.
NASA Curiosity Rover Team Select 1st Driving Destination.
The journey to Glenelg will send the rover 400 m (1,300 ft)
east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of
terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is
attractive as the first drilling target.
rover is 30m (10 ft) in length and weighs 900 kg (1,984 lb)
including 80kg (176 lb) of scientific instruments.
Curiosity is 5 times as large and carry more than 10 times the
mass of scientific instruments as the Mars Exploration Rovers
Spirit or Opportunity.
* In April
2004, NASA made an 'Announcement of Opportunity' for
proposals/ideas for science instruments that could be used onboard
the Mars Science Laboratory.
late 2004 Aerojet test-fired a Viking flight spare rocket engine
assembly in order to help design a new engine which will deliver
the Mars Science Laboratory rover to the surface of Mars. The
rocket engine used in the test was originally built, tested and
delivered in 1973 for the Viking program. The engine was put into
storage after the successful landing of the Viking 1 and Viking 2
spacecraft on Mars in 1976.
contract with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, received
the engine for five hot fire tests that were conducted to evaluate
engine capabilities as well as general health checks. The hot fire
tests determined that the key elements and features within the
Viking engine are relevant to and meet the requirements of
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission.
Aerojet is building three new 700
pound thrust monopropellant rocket engine assemblies to further
evaluate design changes in order to increase mission flexibility
and life capability.
* On December
NASA selected eight proposals to provide instrumentation and
associated science investigations for the mobile Mars Science
Laboratory (MSL) rover. The selected proposals will conduct
preliminary design studies to focus on how the instruments can be
accommodated on the mobile platform, completed and delivered
consistent with the mission schedule.
* On July 22, 2011, NASA announced that Gale
Crater had been selected as the landing site of the Mars Science
First Australian tweetup for Mars mission: Selected members of the general public used
Twitter to ask
questions from scientists and report on this MSL's mission to Mars.
The "tweetup" was tied to the launch of the NASA mission and was being
hosted by CSIRO's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC).
On Saturday 19 November 2011, the launch of the Atlas V was
delayed by one day to allow time for the team to remove and
replace a flight termination system battery. The launch was
rescheduled for Saturday, November 26 from Space Launch Complex-41
at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. There was a one hour
and 43 minute launch window at 10:02 a.m. EST.
Liftoff was on time at 10:02 a.m.
EST on 26 November 2011 from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
It was scheduled to arrive at Mars on August 6, 2012
'Curiosity' lands on Mars
- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
spacecraft aka Curiosity
Rover landed on Mars at 1:31am EDT on Monday, Aug. 6. 2012.
After an 8 month journey, Curiosity is touched down in the 154 km wide Gale Crater in the red planet's
Elysium Planitia region.
* NASA Curiosity Rover Team Select 1st Driving Destination: Glenelg.
The choice was described by Curiosity Project Scientist John
Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology during a media
teleconference on Aug. 17, 2012.
On Saturday night, 18 August 2012, ChemCam is expected to 'zap' its
first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time
such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.
investigations and principal investigators
1. Mars Science Laboratory Mast Camera, Michael Malin, Malin
Space Science Systems (MSSS), San Diego, California.
Mast Camera will perform multi-spectral, stereo imaging at
lengths ranging from kilometers to centimeters, and can acquire
compressed high-definition video at 10 frames per second without
the use of the rover computer.
2. ChemCam: Laser Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and
Micro-Imaging, Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los
Alamos, New Mexico.
ChemCam uses laser beams that can blast a rock from up
to 10 metres away, vaporizing a small amount of the underlying
mineral and then collecting the light emitted by the vaporized
rock to see what it's made of.
France provided ChemCam's laser and telescope.
MArs HandLens Imager for the Mars Science Laboratory, Kenneth
MAHLI will image rocks, soil, frost and ice at resolutions 2.4
times better, and with a wider field of view, than the Microscopic
Imager on the Mars Exploration Rovers.
4. The Alpha-Particle-X-ray-Spectrometer for Mars Science
Laboratory (APXS), Ralf Gellert, Max-Planck-Institute for
Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
APXS will determine elemental abundance of rocks and soil. APXS
will be provided by the Canadian Space Agency.
5. CheMin: An X-ray Diffraction/X-ray Fluorescence (XRD/XRF)
instrument for definitive mineralogical analysis in the Analytical
Laboratory of MSL, David Blake, NASA's Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, California.
CheMin, will identify and quantify all minerals in complex natural
samples such as basalts, evaporites and soils, one of the
principle objectives of Mars Science Laboratory.
6. Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), Donald Hassler,
Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.
RAD will characterize the broad spectrum of radiation at the
surface of Mars. The data
data will be valuable to better determine how future human crews
can cope with radiation doses during their stays on Mars,
an essential precursor to human exploration of the planet. RAD
will be funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at
Mars Descent Imager, Michael Malin, MSSS.
The Mars Descent Imager produced high-resolution color-video
imagery of the MSL descent and landing phase, providing geological
context information, as well as allowing for precise landing-site
8. Sample Analysis at Mars with an integrated suite consisting
of a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, and a tunable laser
spectrometer (SAM), Paul Mahaffy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
SAM will perform mineral and atmospheric analyses, detect a wide
range of organic compounds and perform stable isotope analyses of
organics and noble gases.
In addition to the instrumentation selected, MSL carries a
pulsed neutron source and detector for measuring hydrogen
(including water), provided to NASA through a cooperative
agreement by the Russian Federal Space Agency. The project also
will include a meteorological package and an ultraviolet sensor
provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
The total cost of the Mars
Science Laboratory project is about US$2.5 billion.
If successful, the Mars Science
pave the way for future Martian surface and sample return
For the first
time since the Viking Landers, the minivan-sized MSL rover will
bring an analytical laboratory to the martian surface.
originally scheduled for
launch in December
to arrive in October 2010.
radioisotope thermoelectric generator is 1st to space made
entirely with Russian plutonium.
Mars: The Inside Story of the Red Planet by
Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest
Book of Mars by Joseph M. Boyce
Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World by
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