Mars Rover Landing (HAPPENING NOW)

[Johnlenham]

This thing just blows my mind, its just beyond insane.

They shot a One tonne ROBOT the size of an SUV into space, Its traveled for the best part of a year to get there.
To land it has to do this:
"Entering Mars's tenuous atmosphere about 81 miles (131 km) above the ground, it will free-fall until it's about 7 miles (11 km) up and descending at 900 m.p.h. (1,448 km/h). At that point, parachutes will be deployed, and shortly after that, braking thrusters will fire. Finally, about 66 ft. (20 m) up, long nylon cables will spool out of the hovering descent shell, lowering the rover gently to the ground. As soon as this so-called sky crane has done its work, the descent shell will kick its engines once more, tossing itself out of the way and crash-landing at a safe distance."

All of this is done totally unaided as it takes 14mins for data to reach Earth from Mars but it takes 7mins to get from the atmosphere to the ground so there is effectivly a 7min dead zone so they couldnt control it or anything outside of programing it on Earth. Either it was going to land or crash and burn totally solo.

Its got a godamn laser on it that can take samples of the planet and analyze it. Cameras all over the shop but again we are talking about sending digital data across 127MILLION MILES OF SPACE so they have to wait for satilites to get closer to mars ot beam the data back.

This thing is a godamn technical marvel and the media should really be hammering this on the news, ill be pissed if I get in the car in 20mins and they give it one line of story then start yapping about bloody Bolt again.

[jameshk]

This thing just blows my mind, its just beyond insane.

They shot a One tonne ROBOT the size of an SUV into space, Its traveled for the best part of a year to get there.
To land it has to do this:
"Entering Mars's tenuous atmosphere about 81 miles (131 km) above the ground, it will free-fall until it's about 7 miles (11 km) up and descending at 900 m.p.h. (1,448 km/h). At that point, parachutes will be deployed, and shortly after that, braking thrusters will fire. Finally, about 66 ft. (20 m) up, long nylon cables will spool out of the hovering descent shell, lowering the rover gently to the ground. As soon as this so-called sky crane has done its work, the descent shell will kick its engines once more, tossing itself out of the way and crash-landing at a safe distance."

All of this is done totally unaided as it takes 14mins for data to reach Earth from Mars but it takes 7mins to get from the atmosphere to the ground so there is effectivly a 7min dead zone so they couldnt control it or anything outside of programing it on Earth. Either it was going to land or crash and burn totally solo.

Its got a godamn laser on it that can take samples of the planet and analyze it. Cameras all over the shop but again we are talking about sending digital data across 127MILLION MILES OF SPACE so they have to wait for satilites to get closer to mars ot beam the data back.

This thing is a godamn technical marvel and the media should really be hammering this on the news, ill be pissed if I get in the car in 20mins and they give it one line of story then start yapping about bloody Bolt again.

[gnome]

I can't believe it worked. I'm amazed.

[AxeD]

I can't believe it worked. I'm amazed.

Worked back in 97 too Or was this some new technique they used?
There even has been one riding the red planet for the past 8 years.

[_TraX_]

overwhelmingly brilliant, taking into consideration all that could have gone wrong...

[gnome]

I can't believe it worked. I'm amazed.

Worked back in 97 too Or was this some new technique they used?
There even has been one riding the red planet for the past 8 years.

I know they have rovers up there. I'm amazed the sky crane landing worked.

[__________]

Big up the space exploration crew, I didn't even realise about Curiosity til last week cos of all the Olympics hype.

[deadly_habit]

i can't wait for the color photos, finally see if it is the red planet or not

[Johnlenham]

I can't believe it worked. I'm amazed.

Worked back in 97 too Or was this some new technique they used?
There even has been one riding the red planet for the past 8 years.

Those things are small by comparison


Oh yeah and this is the first time a "sky crane" has been used, the last lot where done by parachute only.

[AxeD]

Whatever works to land it. Looking forward to seeing the images/reports etc.. though.
Thing has some mad technology on board, as you already mentioned.

[mks]

[pkay]

Word is they found trap beats on Mars... but since in terms of space fabric Mars is in the future its OK to keep liking it

[SCope13]

[wormcode]

Not even really thinking they are going to find much of anything worth it, but the best thing about this is I hope it inspires a new generation of kids to get into science and astronomy like the original moon landings did. There's not enough of this kind of stuff around to get kids interested. Too many aspire to be pro sports idiots and millionaires these days, and unfortunately there's not enough funding around to have things like this be more common. I kinda hope they don't attempt to form some colonies though, not a fan of that... though surely that's not even up for debate in our lifetimes I'm guessing.

Also the Greeley Panorama image: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/det ... d=PIA15689

[Marzz]

America! Fuck yeah!!

[Johnlenham]

America! Fuck yeah!!

Except NASA is made up of people from all over the world, but ill let it slide!
Alot of people I was chatting to saying that wasted their lives and should have gone into space related stuff so maybe if they bigged this up abit more it would get more people interested..

[Ferryman]

Do love anything to do with space. Find that shit fascinating.

[Reese_Liar]

This is likely the coolest thing to have happened all year. Like Deadly Habit I'm really excited for when we start receiving the color photos!

The whole universe is fucking amazing and every little bit of it that we explore just helps me believe a little stronger that there is a future for humanity.

[Rob11]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19159382

A video they made of the landing. It's pretty damn awesome! I just can't wait for rover to send back higher resolution pictures later on in the week.

[Shum]

America! Fuck yeah!!

Except NASA is made up of people from all over the world, but ill let it slide!
Alot of people I was chatting to saying that wasted their lives and should have gone into space related stuff so maybe if they bigged this up abit more it would get more people interested..

You should have heard the speeches at the press conference by the head of NASA and Obama's scientific advisor, they went full on AMERICA.