{"id":786781,"date":"2024-08-04T05:38:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T10:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=786781"},"modified":"2024-08-04T05:38:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T10:38:51","slug":"mars-curiosity-rovers-7-minutes-of-terror-12-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=786781","title":{"rendered":"Mars Curiosity rover\u2019s \u20187 minutes of terror\u2019 12 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"7 Minutes of Terror: The Challenges of Getting to Mars\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ki_Af_o9Q9s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>12 years ago on August 5: A nail-biter of a Mars landing<\/h3>\n<p>Tomorrow is the 12-year anniversary of the Curiosity rover\u2019s successful landing on the planet Mars. The landing was unprecedented for its use of new technologies designed to get the rover to Mars\u2019 surface safely. First, Curiosity hit the top of Mars\u2019 thin atmosphere at a velocity of about 13,000 miles per hour (about 6,000 meters per second). Then, in seven minutes, it had to decelerate and then set down, hopefully gently, on the red planet\u2019s surface. Space engineers at the time described the landing as:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u2026 seven minutes of terror.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And, to everyone\u2019s great relief, Curiosity set down safely in Gale Crater on Mars at 10:31 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on August 5, 2012. <\/p>\n<h3>Getting there is easy, but landing there is not<\/h3>\n<p>Going to the red planet is relatively easy. But landing on Mars is hard. In 2003, veteran NASA official Firouz Naderi commented:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Mars is a favorite target. <\/p>\n<p>We \u2013 the United States and former USSR \u2013 have been going to Mars for 40 years. The first time we flew by a planet, it was Mars. The first time we orbited a planet, it was Mars. And the first time we landed on a planet it was Mars. The first time we roved around the surface of a planet, it was Mars. We go there often.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Around that time \u2013 around the turn of this century \u2013 the world was averaging about two failures for every three spacecraft launched toward Mars, according to NASA. There were a total of 39 Mars missions launched, and 25 failures or partial failures by the year 2000, according to Wikipedia.<\/p>\n<p>But then we got better at it. And as the video above shows, Curiosity\u2019s landing used a combination of complicated new technologies, including a new guided entry system and a rocket-powered sky crane that used cables to lower the 1-ton robot rover to the Martian surface. <\/p>\n<h3>Mars Curiosity rover still going strong<\/h3>\n<p>Since 2012, Curiosity has been crawling across Mars\u2019 surface serving as a robot extension of our human senses in exploring Gale Crater on Mars. Curiosity has covered almost 20 miles (32 kilometers) of Mars. The rover has learned, among many other things, that Gale Crater might once have held a great salty lake.<\/p>\n<p>Visit NASA\u2019s Mars Curiosity rover page<\/p>\n<p>Martian rock crushed by Curiosity hides a surprise!<\/p>\n<p>Check this out: 8 Martian postcards to celebrate Curiosity\u2019s landing anniversary<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_341805\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-341805\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-341805\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist\u2019s concept of Curiosity rover\u2019s landing on Mars, via a \u201csky crane\u201d and cables. The new rover that arrived at Mars in March 2021 \u2013 Perseverance \u2013 also landed on Mars via sky crane. Image via NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_341825\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-341825\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2020\/08\/curiosity-self-portrait-may11-2016-e1596573642824.jpg\" alt=\"Dusty 6-wheeled rover looking our way with a camera on a pole, in reddish Martian desert.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-341825\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-341825\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA\u2019s Mars rover Curiosity took this self-portrait on May 11, 2016, at the \u201cOkoruso\u201d drilling site in the foothills of Mount Sharp, the central peak of Gale Crater. If Gale Crater once held a lake, Mount Sharp might have been an island in the middle of that lake. This self-portrait combines multiple images taken with the rover\u2019s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), during the 1,338th Martian day, or sol, of the rover\u2019s work on Mars. Image via NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Perseverance was the next to land <\/h3>\n<p>Curiosity was followed to Mars by another robot rover, Perseverance, which launched from Earth on July 30, 2020. Finally, Perseverance touched down on Mars landing in Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. And Perseverance is largely the same design as Curiosity. When the $2.4 billion spacecraft carrying it reached Mars, it also hit the atmosphere at high speed (more than 12,000 miles per hour or 19,000 kph) and then came to a complete stop on Mars\u2019 surface seven minutes later. Like Curiosity, it landed via \u201csky crane,\u201d but with one big difference: the sky crane technology was now tried-and-true.<\/p>\n<p>Still, as with Curiosity, space engineers surely experienced a nail-biting seven minutes, waiting to hear that the Perseverance rover had set down successfully, as gently as it could, on Mars\u2019 surface.<\/p>\n<p>There, it joined the other Mars rovers in the search for life on Mars, and an exploration of the planet\u2019s surface, atmosphere and history. Perseverance brought with it a special helicopter named Ingenuity that  explored the Martian surface as well until its mission ended in January 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Visit NASA\u2019s Mars Perseverance rover page<\/p>\n<h3>Why focus so many spacecraft on Mars?<\/h3>\n<p>Read more from the <em>NY Times<\/em>: Too much Mars?  An interesting discussion between two veteran space journalists about why Mars seems to absorb so much of the oxygen \u2013 and budgetary resources \u2013 in the rooms where explorations of our solar system are decided.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_341798\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-341798\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2016\/08\/perseverance-rover-parachute-800.gif\" alt=\"Animated view of a parachute opening, seen from below.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-341798\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-341798\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parachute test for Mars Perseverance rover. The images were taken on September 7, 2018, during the third and final flight of the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) project. Read more about this image via NASA\/ JPL-Caltech.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Why is landing on Mars so hard? This 2017 video from MinutePhysics does a great job of explaining it:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why It&#039;s HARD To Land on Mars\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h2nqgKL2JQU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: Watch a NASA video describing the final seven minutes of the Curiosity rover\u2019s chilling descent to the surface of Mars 12 years ago on August 5-6, 2012. Plus learn a bit about how the Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Read more from NASA: Curiosity\u2019s Entry, Descent and Landing<\/p>\n<p>Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!<\/p>\n<p>Curiosity rover on Mars snags highest-resolution panorama yet<\/p>\n<p>Mars rover measures key life ingredient<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cp-load-after-post\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"post-author\">\n<h4>Deborah Byrd<\/h4>\n<p>                    View Articles\n                  <\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-tags\">\n<h6 data-udy-fe=\"text_7c58270d\">About the Author:<\/h6>\n<p>Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she won the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. &#8220;Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/space\/mars-curiosity-rovers-seven-minutes-of-terror\/?rand=772280\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>12 years ago on August 5: A nail-biter of a Mars landing Tomorrow is the 12-year anniversary of the Curiosity rover\u2019s successful landing on the planet Mars. The landing was&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":786782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/786782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}