Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Curiosity Lands on Mars

  1. #1
    Technical Fellow jboggs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Myrtle Beach, SC
    Posts
    908

    Curiosity Lands on Mars

    Check out this video of the Mars landing that happened Sunday night. Blows my mind.
    Makes me wonder just how many million things could have gone wrong.
    The decel and landing process took 7 minutes. It takes 14 minutes for a signal to reach Earth, so it all had to be completely automatic.
    Unbelievable.
    Not bad for an organization that screwed up a mars landing a few years ago due to a metric/imperial conversion error!
    Joe


    http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/video...a_id=146903741
    Last edited by jboggs; 08-06-2012 at 11:33 AM.

  2. #2
    Technical Fellow Kelly_Bramble's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Bold Springs, GA
    Posts
    2,611
    First image from mars...
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Kelly_Bramble; 08-06-2012 at 11:21 AM.

  3. #3
    Technical Fellow
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    1,043
    I stayed up to listen to it. Pretty moving stuff. Gotta be proud to be an American and an Engineer. Have to admit to a little moisture in the eye region when Chen said, "we are safely on Mars."

    Very impressive, it just gave me a little chill to recall Chen's words. Either that or my Depends has sprung a leak.

    Awesome result and it all only cost me $7 a year. Happy to pay. Eagerly awaiting high-res color coming soon. There was a camera pointing down (not sure what part it was mounted to) that recorded the final descent. That's gotta be awesome to see.

  4. #4
    Technical Fellow jboggs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Myrtle Beach, SC
    Posts
    908
    We get the NASA channel on cable. They broadcast the control room live during the whole thing, including interviews with the Chief Engineer (can you imagine THAT job!) and other notables. It was fun trying to understand all the chatter. Most folks have no idea there were actually THREE separate spacecraft involved in that whole operation. Each one had to perform flawlessly, and did. Unbelievable. I've never seen so many excited geeks at the actual announcement. I told my wife this is what makes nerds cry, and then they showed one crying! Really glad I got to see the whole thing. If you don't get the NASA channel, I'll bet you could see the whole video on their website or on Youtube.

    Have you seen the picture that Odyssey snapped of Curiosity's decent with the parachute open? Unbelievable! They said if that snap had been just one second earlier or one second later it would been just martian terrain, and the actual command code for the timing was sent 72 hours earlier!

    Again - unbelievable.

  5. #5
    Lead Engineer RWOLFEJR's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Rochester Pennsylvania
    Posts
    396
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelly Bramble View Post
    First image from mars...
    Crack me up...!
    "Being disintegrated makes me very angry..."

  6. #6
    Technical Fellow
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    1,043
    Quote Originally Posted by jboggs View Post
    We get the NASA channel on cable.
    Joe,

    NASA have a live feed to the Internet using UStream and of course, "Curiosity Cam."
    http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
    and an audio only stream
    http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2
    and here is a stitched together of a bunch of still frame thumbnails...
    http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/video...a_id=149974611
    Last edited by PinkertonD; 08-07-2012 at 03:54 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •