Anxiety over Hollywood-style Mars landing

4 Aug 2012, 8:56 am   -   Source: AAP
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US space scientists are anxious about their robotic rover's Hollywood-style Mars landing on Sunday. (AAP)

US space scientists are anxious about their robotic rover's Hollywood-style Mars landing on Sunday. (AAP)

US space scientists are anxious about their robotic rover's Hollywood-style Mars landing.

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Seven minutes of terror.

It sounds like a Hollywood thriller, but the phrase describes the anxiety NASA is expecting as its car-sized robotic rover tries a tricky landing on Mars late on Sunday.

Skimming the top of the Martian atmosphere at 21,000km/h, the Curiosity rover needs to brake to a stop - in seven minutes.

The rover is headed for a two-year mission to study whether Mars ever had the elements needed for microbial life. Because of its heft, the 900-kilogram robot can't land the way previous spacecraft did.

They relied on airbags to cushion a bouncy touchdown. This time NASA is testing a brand new landing that involves gingerly setting down the rover similar to the way heavy-lift helicopters lower huge loads at the end of a cable.

How hard is it? "The degree of difficulty is above a 10," says Adam Steltzner, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

And American University space policy analyst Howard McCurdy says: "It would be a major technological step forward if it works. It's a big gamble."

A communication time delay between Mars and Earth means Curiosity will have to nail the landing by itself, following the half million lines of computer code that engineers uploaded to direct its every move.

After an eight-and-half-month, 566-million-km journey, here's a step-by-step look at how Curiosity will land:

Ten minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity will separate from the capsule that carried it to Mars.

Turning its protective heat shield forward, it will streak through the atmosphere at 21,240km/h, slowing itself with a series of S-curves.

Eleven km from the ground at 1420km/h, its enormous parachute will unfurl.

At eight km from touchdown and closing in at 450km/h, it will shed its heat shield and turn on radar to scope out the landing site.

A video camera aboard Curiosity will start to record the descent and 1.6km from landing, the parachute will be jettisoned.

Rockets in its "backpack" will then be used to slow it to less than 3.2km/h.

Twelve seconds before landing, nylon cables will be released and lower Curiosity.

Once it senses six wheels on the ground, the cords will be cuts.

The hovering rocket-powered backpack will fly out of the way and crash some distance away.

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Your Comments

probes.

john lodge - from kensington, sydney., 9 months ago

Ion engine probes cut down on travel time to mars and other solar s;ystem planets. Still using the liquid chemical rockets to get to and from orbit. Is there a hybrid system that uses both engines. one for outward journies and return of main vehicle to be reused if it survives radiation damage and one to set probe down on planet surface. If using a nuclear fuel why not use a simple magnetic field ease the danger of solar flares and micro-meteorites damaging the vehicle.

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