[meteorite-list] Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving (MSL)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-135

Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 11, 2012

Team members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission took 
a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert this week to 
improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, 
currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

The test rover that they 
put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of 
Curiosity's mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that 
it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser 
gravity of Mars.

Information collected in these tests on windward and 
downwind portions of dunes will be used by the rover team in making decisions 
about driving Curiosity on dunes near a mountain in the center of Gale 
Crater.

First, however, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, launched 
Nov. 26, 2011, must put Curiosity safely onto the ground. Safe landing 
on Mars is never assured, and this mission will use innovative methods 
to land the heaviest vehicle in the smallest target area ever attempted 
on Mars. Advances in landing heavier payloads more precisely are steps 
toward eventual human missions to Mars.

Curiosity is on track for landing 
the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early on Aug. 6, Universal Time and 
EDT) to begin a two-year prime mission. Researchers plan to use Curiosity 
to study layers in Gale Crater's central mound, Mount Sharp. The mission 
will investigate whether the area has ever offered an environment favorable 
for microbial life.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 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/msl 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 
818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-135