[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Arrives In Florida After Cross-Country Flight (MSL)

[Ron Baalke]

June 23, 2011

Dwayne Brown      
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

George Diller 
Kennedy Space Center, Fla. 
321-867-2468 
george.h.diller at nasa.gov 

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


RELEASE: 11-201

NASA MARS ROVER ARRIVES IN FLORIDA AFTER CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- NASA's next Mars rover has completed the 
journey from its California birthplace to Florida in preparation for 
launch this fall. 

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, also known as Curiosity, 
arrived Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center aboard an Air Force 
C-17 transport plane. It was accompanied by the rocket-powered 
descent stage that will fly the rover during the final moments before 
landing on Mars. The C-17 flight began at March Air Reserve Base in 
Riverside, Calif., where the boxed hardware had been trucked from 
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. 

The rover's aeroshell -- the protective covering for the trip to the 
Red Planet -- and the cruise stage, which will guide it to Mars, 
arrived at Kennedy last month. The mission is targeted to launch from 
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18. The 
car-size rover will land on Mars in August 2012. 

"The design and building part of the mission is nearly behind us now," 
said JPL's David Gruel, who has managed Mars Science Laboratory 
assembly, test and launch operations since 2007. "We're getting to 
final checkouts before sending the rover on its way to Mars." 

The rover and other spacecraft components will undergo more testing 
before mission staff stack them and fuel the onboard propulsion 
systems. Curiosity should be enclosed in its aeroshell for the final 
time in September and delivered to Kennedy's Launch Complex 41 in 
early November for integration with a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 
rocket. 

Curiosity is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as 
any previous Mars rover. Its 10 science instruments include two for 
ingesting and analyzing samples of powdered rock delivered by the 
rover's robotic arm. During a prime mission lasting one Martian year 
-- nearly two Earth years -- researchers will use the rover's tools 
to study whether the landing region has had environmental conditions 
favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving 
clues about whether life existed. 

JPL built the rover and descent stage and manages the mission for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Launch management 
for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services 
Program at Kennedy. 

For more information about the mission, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/msl 

To follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter, visit: 

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity   

or 

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity   

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