1-ton Curiosity Rover, Heart of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mission - Touch Down Slated for AUG 5th 2012

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It won’t be easy. The complicated touchdown NASA designed for the Curiosity rover is so risky that it’s been described as “seven minutes of terror” — the time it takes to go from 20,920 kmph to a complete stop.

Scientists and engineers will be waiting anxiously as the spacecraft plunges through Mars’ thin atmosphere and, in a new twist, attempts to slowly lower the rover to the bottom of a crater with cables.

Scientists on Earth won’t know for 14 minutes whether Curiosity lands safely as radio signals from Mars travel to Earth. If it succeeds, a video camera aboard the rover will have captured the most dramatic minutes for the first filming of a landing on another planet.

“It would be a major technological step forward if it works. It’s a big gamble,” said American University space policy analyst Howard McCurdy.

The future direction of Mars exploration is hanging on the outcome of this $2.5-billion science project to determine whether the environment was once suitable for microbes to live. Previous missions have found ice and signs that water once flowed. Curiosity will drill into rocks and soil in search of carbon and other elements.

Continued (Rover Landing Diagram Included)

[link to www.thehindu.com]

Mars Global Surveyor
MOC narrow-angle image R07-01100
Defrosting south polar terrain

"Lakes" on Mars?

[link to www.thelivingmoon.com]

Bunch of nazi posters here. We the tax payers fund this charade. Losten to hoe these fruads talk. Way to scripted. We didnt go