[meteorite-list] NASA Dryden Hosts Radar Tests for Next Mars Landing (MSL)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-197  

NASA Dryden Hosts Radar Tests for Next Mars Landing
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 11, 2010

Engineers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are
running diverse trials with a test version of the radar system that will
enable NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission to put the Curiosity rover
onto the Martian surface in August 2012.

One set of tests conducted over a desert lakebed at NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center, Edwards, Calif., in May 2010 used flights with a
helicopter simulating specific descent paths anticipated for Martian sites.

During the final stage of descent, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
mission will use a "sky crane" maneuver to lower Curiosity on a bridle
from the mission's rocket-powered descent stage. The descent stage will
carry Curiosity's flight radar.

The testing at Dryden included lowering a rover mockup on a tether from
the helicopter to assess how the sky crane maneuver will affect the
radar's descent-speed determinations by the radar. The helicopter
carried the test radar on a special nose-mounted gimbal.

Helicopter-flown testing has also been conducted at other desert
locations for experience in an assortment of terrains. Later in 2010,
the team plans to test the higher-altitude, higher-velocity part of
Curiosity's radar-aided descent by flying the test radar on dives by an
F/A-18 jet from Dryden.

For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory radar testing at
Dryden, see http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/msl_rover_tests.html.
More about the Mars Science Laboratory is at

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. 

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, 
manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science 
Mission Directorate, Washington.

Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-197