Curiosity Rover's Peculiar Mars Landing Described

[carl0sgs]

What could possibly go wrong in the landing? :D

[Thermagicalwonders]

Cool. But I can just see it now...War of the Worlds- Part Two.

[Filo127]

forever alone.

[psycotria]

@skadar - Over 50 pyro-bolts had to blow to release MER A/B. While this too is complex, thorough testing & design procedures should see this successfully on the surface of Mars, ready to AMAZE!

[skadar]

This landing sequence is MUCH too complex! Who green-lighted this hack job? What happened to the spirit of simplicity that fostered the success of the last rover team?

[VideoFromSpace]

@skadar But what will you say if they succeed? Let's talk again on August 7th, 2012.

[dantopa]

@skadar The opinions of a professional kibitzer, while colorful, lack the value of the opinions of a professional engineer.

If it will help, you should patrol the aisles of Wal-Mart and proffer your blandishments to a more suitable audience.

[DevilGTP97]

@skadar curiosity is much heavier then the last and we cant deploy, "air bags" to cushion its landing.

[mhyar]

@skadar The Spirit landing technique can’t handle the weight of Curiosity. This new technique have been tested many times and it works

[ANDSENS]

@skadar Try a little research before criticizing. From wikipedia: [..] the atmosphere is too thin for parachutes and aerobraking alone to be effective.[97] Although some previous missions have used airbags to cushion the shock of landing, the MSL is too large for this to be an option.

[quadpod]

In a couple of years we went from tossing a bouncy ball with a rover inside to a rocket crane lowering a nuclear powered science lab and to think what would come sooner if NASA's budget was larger...

[VideoFromSpace]

@quadpod Or if the science budget had been properly managed; or if we hadn't spent so much effort employing an army to send a few humans to LEO a few times a year; or if...

[gbarnes4401]

Very cool, hopefully everything goes ok. I've always wondered about weather. Can it handle a violent martian storm?

[VideoFromSpace]

@gbarnes4401 The Martian atmosphere is so thin, even the strongest storms don't have much force compared with those in Earth's atmosphere. Curiosity's ancestors, Spirit & Opportunity, found that the occasional passing dust devil would, in fact, clear their solar panels of dust, leaving them more efficient. And the low Martian temperatures are better for digital cameras than average Earth temps. Turns out Mars is a pretty nice place to be a robot.

[gitarysk]

come on ....it's not going to work

[SirSneakE]

gogo find new forms of life so we can fight it!!!

[chrishsustudio]

AMAZING stuff

[midiout]

There are a lot of very critical operations that have to take place at exactly the right time to land this one. Could they have made it simpler? I don't know. At least NASA has a pretty good success rate with Martian rovers so far. I just hope Curiosity arrives on Mars fully functional and ready to roll.

[gitarysk]

@midiout it's not going to work

[midiout]

Curiosity is much heavier than the previous rovers. The balloons required for a craft this size would be too heavy, so they came up with a different landing system, but it should work. The rover is nuclear powered, and is designed to last a lot longer.

[EWAdams]

@midiout It still feels as if there are a heck of a lot of things that could go wrong, in comparison to earlier craft. 1) Cruise stage fails to separate. 2) Steering thrusters malfunction. 3) Parachutes don't deploy. 4) Heat shield fails to separate. 5) Back shell doesn't drop off. 6) Landing engines don't ignite. 7) Rover does't separate from parachutes. 8) Wheels don't deploy. 9) Descent stage doesn't release rover and falls on it. Did they have to have QUITE so many critical processes?

[kedquist]

@EWAdams Well, Spirit and Opportunity had to deal with 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, plus the airbags deploying successfully and they worked fine.

[DoggySpew]

This seems overly complex for a landing. The former rovers were landed with balloons attached to it, bouncing on the surface. It's much simpler then this system, with less chance of failure.

[kedquist]

@DoggySpew MSL is too big for those airbags.

[Rhombi485]

I don't see any solar panels, hows it powered? Also, some faith in humanity has been restored.

[SingularlyDatarific]

This just in: NASA HAS BUILT A FREAKING MARS DROPSHIP.

[heavydude11]

the audio has de-synced, it's a common issue.

[allseriousness]

WHY SO GLITCHY

[squemish51]

How does the parachute work if there's no oxygen?

[kragtik]

@squemish51 air doesn't need to have oxygen in it to be dense enough to allow for a parachute.. Almost any gas would work

[squemish51]

@kragtik oh ok.

[JoachimVR]

@squemish51 Oxygen is just the gas we need for breathing. Parachutes would work in any gas, in Mars' case, 95% Carbon Dioxide. The concept of a parachute has nothing to do with which gas it uses, pretty much by definition, according to the Ideal Gas Law.

[LerryLand]

And how the information returns?

[oorahaf]

@LerryLand Curiosity is carrying a payload of over 5,000 carrier pigeons that will relay the information back to Earth one at a time

[Legionari3]

Has Curiosity been launched yet?

[VideoFromSpace]

@Legionari3

No Its scheduled for a November 2011 launch.

[PhillyDippy5]

@Legionari3 Yes, it was launched already :)