Ready to roll, almost! NASA Curiosity Mars rover is ready for sendoff to Florida next week. Credit: NASA/JPL
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is being readied for a fall 2011 liftoff from Florida.
Preparations are in full-swing on readying the MSL Curiosity rover for its red planet mission.
Plans now call for the Curiosity robot and its descent stage to be shipped to Florida from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California next week.
Still to come, however, is a decision from NASA higher ups as to where — out of four candidate landing sites picked — Curiosity will explore.
Meanwhile, teams of technicians are busy putting together at the Kennedy Space Center the MSL hardware: its heat-beating mammoth aeroshell and inside, the Curiosity rover and descent stage when it arrives for final assembly and testing.
NASA’s MSL mission to Mars is on track for liftoff during a November 25th to December 18th launch window.
Curiosity is a nuclear-powered rover that will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet’s “habitability.”
Mars Science Laboratory is an exciting mission that will literally turn the page in the exploration of the red planet…and help set the stage for human expeditions that will follow.
By Leonard David