Posted on 08/05/2012 11:04:03 AM PDT by hattend
Landing at 10:30PM Pacific...yes, this is early so all the aviation, space, astronomy and science pingers can "get 'er done".
9:30PM Alaska, 10:30PM Pacific, 11:30PM Mountain, 12:30AM Central, 1:30AM Eastern
That is touchdown prediction but we won’t know if everything worked correctly until 13 minutes later.
Thanks hattend.
Landing at 10:30PM Pacific
Approximately 14 or so minutes after landing time, they should know if it was successful.
www.jpl.nasa.gov
Bookmark.
Does this rover have an arm for Muslim outreach? Mars is what Earth will look like someday.
Landing time is 1:31 AM EDT, Monday 8-6-2012
bump
BTW, thanks for posting this.
This could possibly turn out to be the most important mission in the history mankind.
Curiosity is all about detecting life, past or present and is very well equipped to do this.
Totally agree.
Good Luck, Curiosity!
Ping
If I had written the landing sequence code I would be biting my nails to the quick right about now.
Well, they certainly did the testing/simulations, but it is very complicated sequence of operations, almost seems Rube Goldberg or overly ambitious science fiction. Lots of individual probabilities for failures and those are multiplicative.
One is tempted to say they should have gone simple. But then the Russians, who have an excellent reputation for straightforward, no-frills engineering in air force applications, have a very poor record on Mars missions.
So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether NASA can pull it off. It will be a real kick if they do and another national deflator if they don’t.
Personally, if it were up to me, I probably would have gone with about three small and simple rovers in a single payload which would separate and land independently (using airbags, etc.). But I hope the NASA approach succeeds.
Mark...
Thanks for the thread. Will be following. I agree with others about the complexity of entry and landing.
I know Spirit died, but does anyone know is Opportunity still operational?
Let’s find a martian, abduct him and probe him for a change.
It’s payback time!
Yes.
Absolutely amazing.
The greatest success of NASA since the moon landings.
Although no doubt Hubble is way up there also!
Hi - I certainly agree with your sentiments.
But doesn’t it feel great to see American Exceptionalism at work?
USA! USA! USA!
I think this mission somehow managed to “fly under the radar” of those who run things these days. Or they would surely have shut it down.
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