Newest Mars Rover "Curiosity" Given a Go For Launch Saturday (Nov. 26) + Mission Overview

reply to post by ngchunter


Here are my first images of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity heading out from earth (it's the streak in the center of the image). At the time this initial set of 3 exposures were taken, it was 161,877 km from earth. The centaur stage was also visible at the bottom of the frame, but was cropped out to show the MSL in detail here. I'll post a full video showing both as well as the closeup seen here later on. I'll also calculate MSL's orbital trajectory based on the data I collect tonight. I'm still collecting more exposures. The weather's cloudy with occasional rain sprinkles here, so I'm remotely controlling a telescope in Spain to collect these images.
i319.photobucket.com...

reply to post by ngchunter


That's so cool. thank you again..
Can't wait to see your next posts.

I saw the launch this morning..

what's cool is that it will land on August 5th, my Mama's birthday

reply to post by ngchunter


Spaceweather are showing your image at the moment, very cool.

There's also a great shot of the separation taken from Australia, I debated whether I should go outside to see if I can see it, (It was heading almost straight over my head) but didn't.

Wish I did now, since the guy only used a 55mm lens to get the shots.

Update: January 9, 2012

Everything is going relatively well with the Mars Science Lab (MSL), which is on its way to Mars.

On January 11, it will be making its first engine burn since launch on November 26. This engine burn is the largest planned maneuver on its cruise to Mars. It's designed to put the MSL on the proper course for Mars.

Oddly enough, when the spacecraft was launched it was intentionally put on a trajectory to MISS Mars. This was because NASA did not want the upper stage of the launch vehicle (which is also on a similar trajectory) to impact Mars. The upper stage of the launch vehicle can't be sterilized as well as the probe:

The trajectory resulting from the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch intentionally misses Mars to prevent the upper stage of the launch vehicle from hitting the planet. That upper stage was not cleaned the way the spacecraft itself was to protect Mars from Earth's microbes.

The probe itself is sterilized to keep it from contaminating Mars, and to make sure the science results are "clean" result.

There was an unexpected event on November 29 when a computer reset was triggered by using star-identifying software. NASA engineers are trying to diagnose the cause, but the spacecraft itself has redundant back-up systems, so right now this does not seem like a mission-limiting event.

Diagnostic work continues in response to the reset triggered by use of star-identifying software on the spacecraft on Nov. 29. In tests at JPL, that behavior has been reproduced a few times out of thousands of test runs on a duplicate of the spacecraft's computer, but no resets were triggered during similar testing on another duplicate. The spacecraft itself has redundant main computers. While the spacecraft is operating on the "A side" computer, engineers are beginning test runs of the star-identifying software on the redundant "B side" computer to check whether it is susceptible to the same reset behavior.

Here is a link to the story on the engine burn maneuver and the reset issue:
marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov...

The MSL Curiosity is scheduled to arrive on Mars in 209 days from today. It will land in August. I'll try to keep you updated as to how the burn maneuver went.