Mars Curiosity: Facts and Information
The Mars Science Laboratory and its rover centerpiece, Curiosity, is the most ambitious Mars mission yet flown by NASA. The rover's primary mission is to find out if Mars is, or was, suitable for life. Another objective is to learn more about the red planet's environment.
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Curiosity's size allows it to carry a host of scientific experiments to zap, analyze and take pictures of any rock within reach of its 7-foot (2 meters) arm. Curiosity is about the size of a small SUV. It is 9 feet 10 inches long by 9 feet 1 inch wide (3 m by 2.8 m) and about 7 feet high (2.1 m). It weighs 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms). Curiosity's wheels have a 20-inch (50.8 cm) diameter.
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed the rover to roll over obstacles up to 25 inches (65 centimeters) high and to travel about 660 feet (200 meters) per day. The rover's power comes from a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which produces electricity from the heat of plutonium-238's radioactive decay.
A complicated landing
The $2.5-billion MSL spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Nov. 26, 2011, and arrived on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012, after a daring landing sequence that NASA dubbed "Seven Minutes of Terror." Because of Curiosity's weight, NASA determined that the past method of using a rolling method with land bags would probably not work. Instead, the rover went through an extremely complicated sequence of maneuvers to land.
From a fiery entry into the atmosphere, a supersonic parachute needed to deploy to slow the spacecraft down. NASA officials said the parachute would need to withstand 65,000 pounds (29,480 kg) to break the spacecraft's fall to the surface.
Under the parachute, MSL let go of the bottom of its heat shield so that it could get a radar fix on the surface and figure out its altitude.
The parachute could only slow MSL to 200 mph (322 kph), far too fast for landing. To solve the problem, engineers designed the assembly to cut off the parachute, and use rockets for the final part of the landing sequence.
About 60 feet (18 m) above the surface, MSL's "skycrane" deployed. The landing assembly dangled the rover below the rockets using a 20-foot (6 m) tether. Falling at 1.5 mph (2.4 kph), MSL gently touched the ground about the same moment the skycrane severed the link and flew away, crashing into the surface.
NASA personnel tensely watched the rover's descent on live television. When they received confirmation that Curiosity was safe, engineers pumped fists and jumped up and down in jubilation.
News of the landing spread through social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, and traditional outlets such as newspapers and television. One engineer became famous because of the Mohawk he sported on landing day.
