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Curiosity Lands On Mars
The Mars Science Laboratory, a.k.a. Curiosity, is now less than an hour from touchdown on Mars. It's scheduled to land at 1:31 AM EDT (0531 UTC). The landing will be monitored by the Odyssey orbiter, which will be the data relay between Curiosity and Earth. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be listening to Curiosity as well (yes — two of our probes orbiting another world will be watching a third). While Odyssey will be giving us close to real-time updates (as close as possible, given the 14-minute time delay), MRO's data will take a bit longer to be processed and evaluated. NASA is broadcasting from the JPL mission room right now. If you'd like to watch a pretty awesome graphical visualization of the mission, check out eyes.nasa.gov. If you'd like to play around with a Java app showing Mars-local times and seasons, check out Mars24. If you'd like to watch unofficial coverage, Bad Astronomer Phil Plait and a bunch of other astronomers are hosting a public Google Hangout. If you'd like to read a detailed explanation of the landing, checkout NASA's press kit (PDF), and there's also a post about what to expect when the rover starts sending pictures back to Earth, which will be about two hours after the rover lands. Good luck to everyone involved! We'll update this post when we get word on the landing.
Update: 08/06 05:33 GMT by S : Curiosity is on the ground! Everything looks nominal, and everybody at JPL is cheering. Congratulations, folks. They're continuing to receive telemetry from Odyssey, and the connection is strong. They've now received the first images back from Mars of Curiosity on the ground. A press briefing is scheduled in a little bit (2:15AM EDT, 0615 UTC), and several more throughout the day as more data comes back.
Update: 08/06 05:33 GMT by S : Curiosity is on the ground! Everything looks nominal, and everybody at JPL is cheering. Congratulations, folks. They're continuing to receive telemetry from Odyssey, and the connection is strong. They've now received the first images back from Mars of Curiosity on the ground. A press briefing is scheduled in a little bit (2:15AM EDT, 0615 UTC), and several more throughout the day as more data comes back.
Seriously, how many "Curiosity is About To Land" articles do we need today?
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Sorry, but the way this thing lands is way too complicated to ever work.
As I recall, images of the lunar lander were transmitted live as the landing happened, and were relayed to TVs around the US/world. Yet here, there is apparently no such footage. So far, just a thumbnail of the tire. How many decades have passed since Apollo? Do we really need to tell these idiots that they are a public relations firm in addition to a scientific organization, and that for them to continue to receive cash money, they need to inspire people with their work? Watching a bunch of engineers high-five each other is not what I stayed up half the night for. I wanted to see footage of the lander as it performed it's crazy descent. But that is too much for NASA to handle, I guess.
No doubt, that post will lead to many with horns screaming tomorrow
You do not know what you are talking about. Windows is the bes888798se98wer9w8erwerwer....
Then from another system, they will say that as soon as they get rid of the virus on that windows, they will create a new chant to bring the true dark one over to my house to install Windows on it. Like I am really going to invite in Bill Gates into my house. Then I will have NO power against him.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Given a finite pot of money (say $2.5B), we could have done truly new things.
Why did have to go back to Mars for the nth time with yet another rover when we could visit Europa instead which is COVERED IN WATER and probably liquid beneath.
The reason we didn't was (1) a bunch of vested interests and (2) fear that it would have been a harder sell to congress. This is the source of our stagnation.