Clockwise from upper left: Mastcam is the Mast Camera instrument. ChemCam is the Chemistry and Camera instrument. RAD is the Radiation Assessment Detector instrument. CheMin is the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument. SAM is the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument. DAN is the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument. MARDI is the Mars Descent Imager instrument. MAHLI is the Mars Hand Lens Imager instrument. APXS is the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument. The brush, drill, sieves and scoop are tools on the rover's robotic arm. REMS is the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Official word from NASA this morning: The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — the huge Curiosity rover — will touch down at Gale crater.
That site offers access to diverse rock strata, including interbedded sulfates and phyllosilicates in a three mile (5 kilometer) high mound that reflects deposition during changing environmental conditions.
“It’s a worthy challenge for such a capable rover,” announced Michael Meyer, Mars Exploration Program lead scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington.
The announcement was made today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Target crater
Gale as the target crater spans 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter and holds a mountain rising higher from the crater floor than Mount Rainier rises above Seattle.
In fact, Gale Crater is about the combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
“One fascination with Gale is that it’s a huge crater sitting in a very low-elevation position on Mars, and we all know that water runs downhill,” said John Grotzinger, the mission’s project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
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.”
Humans to Mars, a precursor
“Mars is firmly in our sights,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a NASA press statement.
“Curiosity not only will return a wealth of important science data, but it will serve as a precursor mission for human exploration to the Red Planet,” Bolden added.
The mission is being readied for a fall 2011 liftoff from Florida.
Busy preparations
Teams of technicians are busy putting together and checking out the Mars-bound MSL gear at the Kennedy Space Center: its Lockheed Martin-built heat-beating mammoth aeroshell and inside, the Curiosity rover and descent stage.
NASA’s MSL mission to Mars is on track for liftoff during a November 25th to December 18th launch window.
Once launched, the car-sized Curiosity robot , is slated to land on the red planet in August 2012.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of Caltech.
By Leonard David