12 years in the past on August 5: A nail-biter of a Mars touchdown
Tomorrow is the 12-year anniversary of the Curiosity rover’s profitable touchdown on the planet Mars. The touchdown was unprecedented for its use of recent applied sciences designed to get the rover to Mars’ floor safely. First, Curiosity hit the highest of Mars’ skinny ambiance at a velocity of about 13,000 miles per hour (about 6,000 meters per second). Then, in seven minutes, it needed to decelerate after which set down, hopefully gently, on the purple planet’s floor. House engineers on the time described the touchdown as:
… seven minutes of terror.
And, to everybody’s nice reduction, Curiosity set down safely in Gale Crater on Mars at 10:31 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on August 5, 2012.
Getting there may be straightforward, however touchdown there may be not
Going to the purple planet is comparatively straightforward. However touchdown on Mars is difficult. In 2003, veteran NASA official Firouz Naderi commented:
Mars is a favourite goal.
We – the USA and former USSR – have been going to Mars for 40 years. The primary time we flew by a planet, it was Mars. The primary time we orbited a planet, it was Mars. And the primary time we landed on a planet it was Mars. The primary time we roved across the floor of a planet, it was Mars. We go there usually.
Round that point – across the flip of this century – the world was averaging about two failures for each three spacecraft launched towards Mars, in line with NASA. There have been a total of 39 Mars missions launched, and 25 failures or partial failures by the 12 months 2000, according to Wikipedia.
However then we received higher at it. And because the video above exhibits, Curiosity’s touchdown used a mix of sophisticated new applied sciences, together with a brand new guided entry system and a rocket-powered sky crane that used cables to decrease the 1-ton robotic rover to the Martian floor.
Mars Curiosity rover nonetheless going sturdy
Since 2012, Curiosity has been crawling across Mars’ surface serving as a robotic extension of our human senses in exploring Gale Crater on Mars. Curiosity has coated virtually 20 miles (32 kilometers) of Mars. The rover has discovered, amongst many different issues, that Gale Crater may as soon as have held a great salty lake.
Visit NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover page
Martian rock crushed by Curiosity hides a surprise!
Check this out: 8 Martian postcards to celebrate Curiosity’s landing anniversary
Perseverance was the subsequent to land
Curiosity was adopted to Mars by one other robotic rover, Perseverance, which launched from Earth on July 30, 2020. Lastly, Perseverance touched down on Mars touchdown in Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. And Perseverance is basically the identical design as Curiosity. When the $2.4 billion spacecraft carrying it reached Mars, it additionally hit the ambiance at excessive velocity (greater than 12,000 miles per hour or 19,000 kph) after which got here to an entire cease on Mars’ floor seven minutes later. Like Curiosity, it landed through “sky crane,” however with one huge distinction: the sky crane expertise was now tried-and-true.
Nonetheless, as with Curiosity, space engineers absolutely skilled a nail-biting seven minutes, ready to listen to that the Perseverance rover had set down efficiently, as gently because it may, on Mars’ floor.
There, it joined the opposite Mars rovers within the seek for life on Mars, and an exploration of the planet’s floor, ambiance and historical past. Perseverance introduced with it a particular helicopter named Ingenuity that explored the Martian floor as effectively till its mission led to January 2024.
Visit NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover page
Why focus so many spacecraft on Mars?
Read more from the NY Times: Too much Mars? An attention-grabbing dialogue between two veteran space journalists about why Mars appears to soak up a lot of the oxygen – and budgetary sources – within the rooms the place explorations of our solar system are determined.
Why is touchdown on Mars so laborious? This 2017 video from MinutePhysics does an important job of explaining it:
Backside line: Watch a NASA video describing the ultimate seven minutes of the Curiosity rover’s chilling descent to the floor of Mars 12 years in the past on August 5-6, 2012. Plus study a bit about how the Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021.
Read more from NASA: Curiosity’s Entry, Descent and Landing
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