Mars Rover: How a Self-Portrait Captured the Power of Curiosity
Chapter One SEVEN TERRIFYING MINUTES Hundreds of people crowded into New York’s Times Square looking up at a huge screen after midnight on August 6 2012 They were hoping to see the next chapter in space exploration unfold Many more watched in science center auditoriums across the United States Millions watched online hoping for a glimpse of the surface of the planet that appears as a red dot in Earth’s sky Whether this chapter would end with triumph or disaster was anyone’s guess Almost nine months earlier the U S National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA had launched a spacecraft toward Mars with a wheeled robot packed inside For a decade engineers working on the Mars Science Lab mission labored over the design and construction of the one-ton rover which was named Curiosity The rover rests low on six wide wheels Scientific instruments are attached to its body and some cluster at the end of a mechanical arm Lenses and instruments mounted on its mast suggest a face The size of a small car the rover cost almost 2 5 billion the price of a movie ticket for every person in the United States according to mission geochemist Roger Wiens The public would get its money’s worth 1
A crowd in New York City’s Times Square celebrated as the rover Curiosity made its way to the surface of Mars in 2012 NASA invited the world to share the triumph or catastrophe of the mission as it was happening TV cameras at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL in Pasadena California beamed live images from mission control There team members wearing blue polo shirts sat at several rows of monitors Systems engineer Allen Chen was ready to narrate the coming events for both his team and audiences around the world Curiosity was almost at the end of its 345-million-mile 555-million-kilometer interplanetary voyage But the greatest challenge was ahead It had to survive a 7-minute plunge through the Martian atmosphere and land safely I worked 10 years for seven minutes to go well 2 Chen said Would Curiosity survive the drop and land on its wheels ready to roam and explore Or would it suffer the fate of previous Mars missions which had shot past the planet crashed or simply stopped communicating Since 1960 more than half of all missions to the red planet had failed We’ve got literally seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars going from 13,000 miles an hour to zero in perfect sequence perfect choreography perfect timing 3 engineer Tim Rivellini said in a
NASA video about the mission If any one thing doesn’t work just right it’s game over Mars Science Lab mission engineer Adam Steltzner worried that the entire mission rode on his Entry Descent and Landing EDL team the people responsible for depositing the rover safely on Mars It’s kind of an emotional time he said We’re wishing for the best We feel that we’ve done everything to deserve it and now it’s in the hands of the fates 4 As Curiosity’s capsule neared Mars the planet’s gravity drew it in Curiosity navigated downward blindly most of the way Its cameras and radar were packed inside the capsule’s darkness A NASA orbiter tracked the capsule and sent updates about the descent as radio signals to Earth Engineers could translate this heartbeat to learn the capsule’s speed altitude and path toward the surface Chen announced reassuringly Things are looking good 5 An artist’s concept of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory’s spacecraft approaching Mars with Curiosity safely tucked inside Now more like spectators mission members monitored the unfolding drama A spacecraft takes months to travel from Earth to Mars and it takes 14 minutes or so for the signal from the spacecraft to make it to Earth that’s how far Mars is away from us 6 Steltzner explained Curiosity’s team could not guide the rover’s high-speed descent from Earth with that much delay So engineers had programmed Curiosity with
