PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. (NASA press release)
"Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. You can explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager spacecraft. And now you can ride with Curiosity all the way to the surface of Gale crater. Preview the events of Entry Descent and Landing, or watch live.
Tucked inside the Curiosity rover is a miniature chemistry lab designed to unlock the secrets of Mars. In the following YouTube video (courtesy of NASAexplorer) Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy, Deputy Principal Investigator Pamela Conrad, and MSL Participating Scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode discuss their work on SAM, the Sample Analysis at Mars, and its mission to the figure out the past and present chemistry of the Red Planet.
Late Saturday night, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft successfully fine-tuned its course to better zero in on its target entry point into the Martian atmosphere on landing day.
Because of control system problems last week it looked for a while like the Mars Odyssey orbiter might not be in position to monitor Curiosity's landing in real-time. Those problems have been corrected and Odyssey, which began its science mapping mission of Mars way back in February 2002, should be able to relay prompt news of the rover's touchdown in Gale Crater.
NASA has developed a free Kinect Xbox Mars Rover Landing game that lets you share Curiosity's "seven minutes of terror" as you try to guide her from atmospheric entry to a safe landing in Gale Crater. It would be great to have an one at our party. Email me if you can help out.
An article by Kenneth Chang in The New York Times Wednesday ("Seven Minutes of Terror" Video Grabs Online Audience for NASA) discusses how NASA is using social media to generate excitement about landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars early next month. Atlanta Science Tavern Director, Marc Merlin, was interviewed for the article where he described plans for our Mars landing celebration here.
A series of 76 meticulously-engineered fireworks must operate for the Curiosity rover to safely reach the surface of Mars. A detailed description of these pyrotechnic devices and the how their detonations must be precisely orchestrated can be found in this NASA-JPL press release.
A 40-second rocket firing Tuesday maneuvered the Curiosity rover landing 4 miles closer to "Mount Sharp" and may shave months off the time needed for driving from the touchdown location to selected destinations at exposures of water-related minerals on the slope of the mountain. (NASA-JPL press release)
From the JPLnews channel on YouTube: Team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory share the challenges of the Curiosity Mars rover's final minutes to landing on the surface of Mars.
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. (
Tucked inside the Curiosity rover is a miniature chemistry lab designed to unlock the secrets of Mars. In the following YouTube video (courtesy of 
Late Saturday night, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft successfully fine-tuned its course to better zero in on its target entry point into the Martian atmosphere on landing day.
Because of control system problems last week it looked for a while like the Mars Odyssey orbiter might not be in position to monitor Curiosity's landing in real-time. Those problems have been corrected and Odyssey, which began its science mapping mission of Mars way back in February 2002, should be able to relay prompt news of the rover's touchdown in Gale Crater.
NASA has developed a free 
An article by Kenneth Chang in The New York Times Wednesday (
