Lancering Mars Science Laboratory

Om een idee te krijgen hoe groot het karretje is dat (hopelijk) op Mars zal rondrijden......


Ietsje groter dan z'n voorgangers dus........
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MSL and Curiosity 'Locked and Loaded' for Launch

^{by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Nov 24, 2011}



Following Wednesday morning's Launch Readiness Review, NASA and contractor managers gave the launch team the go-ahead to continue working towards liftoff of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) on Saturday, Nov. 26. No significant launch vehicle or spacecraft issues are being worked on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket or the MSL spacecraft, which includes the rover Curiosity.

"This rover, Curiosity rover, is really a rover on steroids. It's an order of magnitude more capable than anything we have ever launched to any planet in the solar system. It will go longer, it will discover more than we can possibly imagine," said Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "The Mars Science Lab and the rover Curiosity is locked and loaded, ready for final countdown on Saturday's launch to Mars."

The next major prelaunch milestone is rollout of the Atlas V to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

"We plan on rolling the vehicle out of the Vertical Integration Facility on Friday morning," said NASA Launch Director Omar Baez. "We should be on the way to the pad by 8 a.m."

"We've had our normal challenges and hiccups that we have in these kinds of major operations, but things have gone extremely smoothly and we're fully prepared to go on Saturday morning. We hope that the weather cooperates," said Peter Theisinger, MSL project manager from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Launch day weather is predicted to be favorable, with only a 30 percent chance of conditions prohibiting liftoff.

Mars Science Laboratory Launch Milestones
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is tucked inside its Atlas V rocket, ready for launch on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Nov. 26 launch window extends from 7:02 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. PST (10:02 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EST). The launch period for the mission extends through Dec. 18.

The spacecraft, which will arrive at Mars in August 2012, is equipped with the most advanced rover ever to land on another planet. Named Curiosity, the rover will investigate whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life, and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.

On Nov. 26, NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 4:30 a.m. PST (7:30 a.m. EST). Live launch coverage will be carried on all NASA Television channels.

For NASA Television downlink information, schedule information and streaming video, click here. The launch coverage will also be streamed live on Ustream .

If the spacecraft lifts off at the start of the launch window on Nov. 26, the following milestones are anticipated. Times would vary for other launch times and dates.

Launch
The rocket's first-stage common core booster, and the four solid rocket boosters, will ignite before liftoff. Launch, or "T Zero", actually occurs before the rocket leaves the ground. The four solid rocket boosters jettison at launch plus one minute and 52 seconds.

Fairing Separation
The nose cone, or fairing, carrying Mars Science Laboratory will open like a clamshell and fall away at about three minutes and 25 seconds after launch. After this, the rocket's first stage will cut off and then drop into the Atlantic Ocean.

Parking Orbit
The rocket's second stage, a Centaur engine, is started for the first time at about four minutes and 38 seconds after launch. After it completes its first burn of about 7 minutes, the rocket will be in a parking orbit around Earth at an altitude that varies from 102 miles (165 kilometers) to 201 miles (324 kilometers).

It will remain there from 14 to 30 minutes, depending on the launch date and time. If launch occurs at the beginning of the launch Nov. 26 launch window, this stage will last about 21 minutes.

On the Way to Mars
The second Centaur burn, continuing for nearly 8 minutes (for a launch at the opening of the Nov. 26 launch window), lofts the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and sends it toward Mars.

Spacecraft Separation
Mars Science Laboratory will separate from the rocket that boosted it toward Mars at about 44 minutes after launch, if launch occurs at the opening of the Nov. 26 window.

Shortly after that, the separated Centaur performs its last task, an avoidance maneuver taking itself out of the spacecraft's flight path to avoid hitting either the spacecraft or Mars.

Sending a Message of Good Health
Once the spacecraft is in its cruise stage toward Mars, it can begin communicating with Earth via an antenna station in Canberra, Australia, part of NASA's Deep Space Network.

Engineers expect to hear first contact from the spacecraft at about 55 minutes after launch and assess the spacecraft's health during the subsequent 30 minutes.
The spacecraft will arrive at the Red Planet Aug. 6, 2012, Universal Time (evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT).

Hmm, ik heb zin om te gaan hardlopen.
Mars gives you energy

Hoop dat hierna mensen naar mars gaan.

het laatste twitter nieuws

Curiosiy schrijft
Today's my big day! I'm on the launch pad looking at Mars up there in the sky near
Regulus. I'll be on my way in about 4 hours!


Voor later.....
NASA HD-TV met een chatbox

[ Bericht 29% gewijzigd door -CRASH- op 26-11-2011 12:41:24 ]

Nasa tv is (a)live

Van de website van www.quest.nl

Half hour countdown

Dit is echt een awesome missie. Ben benieuwd of alles gaat lukken zoals gepland, die hele landing ziet er nogal complex uit!

Nog 10 minuten

48hour delay? Wtf
never mind.

Permission to launch. Good luck and godspeed.

Paar seconden nog

Ohnee nog 3 minuten nu

And weve got a liftoffffff
Curiosity is on his way to mars

En hij is weg

Wooops een booster kwan iets te laat los

mooie video beelden

Die twitterberichten

Bye bye @ULALaunch Atlas V. Thanks for the ride! Centaur, can you point me to Mars?

NASA launches biggest-ever rover to Mars


^{by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Nov 26, 2011}



NASA's Curiosity rover, the biggest, most sophisticated robotic explorer ever built, blasted off Saturday on a journey to Mars, where it will hunt for signs life once existed there.

Curiosity, which is the size of a large car and weighs in at one ton, has a laser beam for zapping interesting rocks and a tool kit for analyzing their contents.

It carries a robotic arm, a drill, and a set of 10 science instruments including two color video cameras.

Sensors will enable it to report back on the Martian weather and the levels of radiation in the atmosphere -- important data for NASA as it devises future human exploration missions.

Known formally as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the spacecraft launched at 10:02 am (1502 GMT) atop an Atlas V rocket to begin its nearly nine month trip to the Red Planet.

"Liftoff of the Atlas V with Curiosity, seeking clues to the planetary puzzle about life on Mars," said NASA commentator George Diller as the white rocket soared skyward from the Florida space pad.

The most advanced machine yet to roam the surface of Earth's nearest neighbor cost $2.5 billion to construct and has been described by NASA as "a dream machine."

It is powered by nuclear fuel and is about twice the size of NASA's twin solar-powered rovers Spirit and Opportunity that landed on Mars in 2004.

Scientists hope it will return valuable information about the past, present and future habitability of Mars to help the US space agency plan a human mission there, perhaps by the 2030s.

While the rover is not equipped to detect living organisms, it may find samples of organic carbon that indicate life once existed on Mars, or that perhaps it still does in microbial form.

The landing spot for Curiosity, the Gale Crater near Mars' equator, was chosen after lengthy study because it contains a three-mile high mountain and many layers of sediment that could reveal a lot about the planet's wetter past.

"It is going to look for places that are habitable either in the past or potentially even in the future or currently," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's Astrobiology Program.

The crater itself is at a low elevation so scientists believe that if water ever did pool on Mars, it likely found its way there. Everywhere that water exists on Earth, so does some form of life.

First, the rover has to travel 354 million miles (570 million kilometers), arrive intact and survive an elaborate rocketed-powered sky crane landing.

The project is meant to last two Earth years, or one full Martian year, but NASA hopes that like some of its other rovers in the past, Curiosity will outlive its expected potential.

Opportunity is still returning information to Earth-bound researchers who finally lost contact with its companion, Spirit, last year.

About a dozen Mars missions have been launched in the past three decades by global space agencies, but only about half have succeeded. NASA's exploration of Mars began with the 1976 landing of the Viking spacecraft.

"Viking did the best it could, but it could only see a couple of samples. MSL is going to look at tons of samples," said Pamela Conrad, deputy principal investigator of Nasa's sample analysis.

"Mars very easily could have produced life," she said. "Mars could very easily have evolved the complex chemistry that is necessary to be a habitable environment. And that information is still on Mars."