Mars Science Laboratory. Mars Science Laboratory, the Next Mars Rover. NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover. Mars orbiter catches pic of Curiosity on its way down! This is truly astonishing: the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped what may turn out to be the Space Picture of the Year: Curiosity descending to Mars under its parachutes! Holy. Haleakala. The rover is safely tucked inside the backshell, suspended underneath its huge parachute. This image was taken just moments after Curiosity’s speed had dropped from thousands of kilometers per hour to just hundreds. Shortly after that, rockets underneath took over the job of slowing it further, so that the sky crane could lower Curiosity safely to the Martian surface. This took incredible skills in calculations, engineering, and a just a wee pinch of good timing.
The simple and sheer amazingness of this picture cannot be overstated. The news these days is filled with polarization, with hate, with fear, with ignorance. It’s what we can do, and what we must do. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Related Posts: - Humans send their Curiosity to Mars! Mars Mobile. MSL/Curiosity : images et résultats. MSL/Curiosity News. MSL/Curiosity sur Mars ! MSL/Curiosity : descente et atterrissage. MSL/Curiosity : mission, rover et instruments. Mars Science Laboratory - MSL. MSL/Curiosity : dessins et des sons. MSL/Curiosity anecdotes. Divers. A classer. Pearltrees martiens. NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover. Orbit-Mars. NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover. Mars rover Curiosity lands, NASA releases new image and video: ‘The surface mission of Curiosity has now begun’ - Ideas@Innovations.
8:23 p.m. - NASA releases short video of Mars rover descent We discovered via io9 this video of the Mars rover Curiosity making its way toward the surface of Mars. The thumbnail images in sequence and taken by the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) show the rover in the last two-and-a-half minutes of Curiosity’s descent to Mars: 1:13: News briefing ends! The news briefing is over. We’ll have a couple more updates with the photos that were passed down. In the meantime, let us know what you thought of the news conference in the comments below. 1:05: What’s the significance of the HiRise imagery “The fact that we see ourselves arriving [on] another planet,” said Miguel San Martin, a member of the altitude control systems team, “it’s just mind boggling to me — to all of us. 1:00: Why is the MSL team living on Mars time for the first 90 Sols? The MSL team will be working on Mars time for the next 90 Martian days or Sols. 12:55: What will be in the first color image?
First the video: Then the making-of: