[meteorite-list] Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-229

Curiosity Rover Just Hours from Mars Landing
Jet Propulsion Laboraotry
August 05, 2012

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is healthy and right on 
course for a landing in several hours that will be one of the most difficult feats of 
robotic exploration ever attempted.

Emotions are strong in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, 
Calif., as the hours and miles race toward touchdown of the car-size Curiosity at about 
10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (about 1:31 a.m. Aug. 6, EDT).

"Excitement is building while the team is diligently monitoring the spacecraft," said 
Mission Manager Brian Portock of JPL. "It's natural to get anxious before a big event, 
but we believe we are very well prepared."

Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques 
enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible 
for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a 
well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well-suited for this mission 
of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human 
missions to Mars.

Controllers decided Sunday morning to forgo the sixth and last opportunity on the 
mission calendar for a course-correction maneuver. The spacecraft is headed for its 
target entry point at the top of Mars' atmosphere precisely enough without that maneuver.

Later today, mission controllers will choose whether or not to use a last opportunity 
for updating onboard information the spacecraft will use during its autonomous control 
of the entry, descent and landing. Parameters on a motion tracker were adjusted Saturday 
for fine-tuning determination of the spacecraft's orientation during the descent.

At the critical moment of Curiosity's touchdown, controllers and the rest of the world 
will be relying on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to provide immediate confirmation of a 
successful landing. Odyssey will turn to point in the right direction beforehand to 
listen to Curiosity during the landing. If for any reason that turn maneuver does not 
work, a successful landing cannot be confirmed until more than two hours later.

The landing will end a 36-week flight from Earth and begin at two-year prime mission on 
Mars. Researchers will use Curiosity's 10 science instruments to investigate whether 
Martian environmental conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 
mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about 
Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . 
You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and 
on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov/agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-229