NASA photo
On Saturday November 26th an Atlas V rocket launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. On board was the latest Mars rover called ‘Curiosity’ which is the size of a car. It will take nearly 8 ½ months to get to Mars and will be arriving in August of 2012. The rover has to travel 570 million km, arrive intact and survive an elaborate rocketed-powered sky crane landing. The program will cost 2.5 billion dollars US.
This is the most advanced rover yet and it runs on nuclear fuel which is different from the previous rovers ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ which were solar powered. This will allow the rover to operate both during the day and night. Curiosity has a robotic arm, a laser, drill, ten scientific instruments and two colour video cameras.
The landing spot for Curiosity, the Gale Crater near Mars’ equator, was chosen after lengthy study because it contains a five-kilometre high mountain and many layers of sediment that could reveal a lot about the planet’s wetter past.
The rover will be able to run for two years and they hope it will return valuable information about the past, present and future habitability of Mars to help the US space agency plan a human mission there, perhaps by the 2030’s.
The video is awesome to watch.
Thank you, Brendan. I’m so happy you took the time and the initiative to watch the video and comment on it. Good for you!