NASA photographs split second when Curiosity enters Mars airspace

Fox news ^ | August 6, 2012 | Foxnews

[Vince Ferrer]

Thanks to a remarkable combination of engineering and mathematics, a NASA satellite in orbit around Mars was able to capture this picture of the split second when Curiosity fell from the skies to its successful landing on the surface of the red planet.

[Vince Ferrer]

[cripplecreek]

That’s pretty damn cool I don’t care who you are.

[the invisib1e hand]

Thanks to a remarkable combination of engineering and mathematics

[brivette]

remarkable. Hope they find something of interest.

[EGPWS]

How long before we see a political ad explaining 0bamas single handed trip to Mars?

[Jyotishi]

Obama may retire there after November.

[South40]

Great pic!

The NASA gallery with more pics can be found here.

[DoughtyOne]

I’d contribute to send him there on a one way ticket.

No parachute though. Sorry, I can only afford so much.

All we need is an orbiter capable of spitting him out.

[Balding_Eagle]

I honestly didn’t think NASA could pull it off anymore. I’m so pleased to be wrong.

[JusPasenThru]

For sure. I for one am proud of America on this one.

[DoughtyOne]

Well I don’t care who you are either, but I agree with you.

;^)

[ZinGirl]

[Le Chien Rouge]

If we had not spent so much money on LBJ’s Great Society programs(black reparations), we would be landing MEN on Mars.

Great Photo.

[eddie willers]

I honestly didn’t think NASA could pull it off anymore.

I didn't think it would be able to pull off the Sky Crane, powered fight part.

Happy to say...."I was wrong"!

[cripplecreek]

The Dawn Spacecraft is due to leave asteroid Vesta soon and will be heading for Ceres.

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

Juno still has at least a year to its destination orbiting Jupiter.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html

I personally am most looking forward to the New Horizons flyby of Pluto in 2015.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

[Charles Martel]

That’s pretty damn cool I don’t care who you are.

Indeed it is. Seeing that rocket-powered flying sky crane landing system operate flawlessly the first time out more than makes up for the metric mishap that killed an earlier lander.

[kingu]

JPL’s known for some pretty hair brained ideas, that have a tenancy to not only be thinking outside the box, but actually work as well. Am I surprised that the skycrane worked? No. Or the parachute? No.

Am I dumbfounded in awe at being able to hit the all time smallest bullseye? Absolutely. Yeah, the rest of the stuff was cool, relaying stuff through satellites, taking pictures of Curiosity after parachute deployment - all pretty nifty. But even hurling a smart bullet to hit their injection window of just a few miles across while travelling over 12,000 miles an hour? That's over 3 miles a second.

Miss that, it doesn't matter what whizbang stuff you've got stowed away, it will be doing a bang up impression of the Beagle.

Now, if only they could get that stupid NASA sign off of my Caltech/JPL.

[Windcatcher]

I don’t know about that, but the usual suspects are already crawling out from under their rocks with the same 40-year-old mantra: “working poor”, “dying in the streets”, “evil companies laid them off”, “can’t pay their bills”, the usual left-wing verbal diarrhea.