Curiosity (Mars Science Lab)

Here's an article in case you don't know about it.

Here's a better one.

So about 40 minutes. Anyone else crossing their fingers?

Looks like you beat me by 6 seconds. Here is the link to the live feed.

I hope it lands and everything works out right.

Someone at NASA has a fucking mohawk. I could not be more proud of my country.

who says nerds aren't hot?

Someone keeps getting notifications on their iPhone.

And tweets.

Touchdown!

We throw a robot at Mars, and Mars caught it. Touchdown.

USA JUST WON GOLD IN THE SPACE OLYMPICS!!!

Stuck the landing!

We're all gonna get laid.

First pic came in!

(64x64 pixel image. If you squint you can make out one of the rover's wheels in the lower right. A couple minutes later they got the "high res" 256 pixel image.)

RED ROCKS

Sounds like it landed pretty smoothly too.

Watched the landing stream while here at work. A coworker asked me what I was watching when he heard the cheers erupt. "Buncha happy nerds" was my reply.

It's nice to have good news in CE sometimes. I am a happy nerd too. Just not one with an advanced engineering degree.

So upset that I missed the actual landing. I was trying to hurry back from Disneyland with my sleeping nephew, but we just missed it. A bit anticlimactic to not go through all the tension as the spacecraft enters the atmosphere, discards the heat shield and deploys the drag parachute, and the final descent and skycrane maneuver for the rover. It's still awesome though, so happy it got there in one piece without a single hitch. I hope that there will be more data including imagery of the spacecraft's descent from the orbiter. Now that it's down though, I can't wait to see some of the detailed imagery from the surface...

Its kinda cool I guess but haven't we been doing this kind of thing since the 1970's?

what's so exciting about this landing?

Seems kind of like asking why people get excited at their team winning the Superbowl, since we have one every year.

We've sent 7 rovers to Mars. This is the 4th to land successfully.

Well, for one thing Curiosity's mission is unlike that of any other probe we've sent before. Curiosity is looking for signs of life. Also landing a piece of machinery on a rock hurtling through space a couple billion miles away is no easy task. Prior to Curiosity, there was only a thirty percent success rate for landing on another planet. And those mostly used airbags to ensure a safe landing on mars. One of those airbags goes during the landing and you're left with nothing but very expensive wreckage. Curiosity used an all new crane system to ensure a safe descent to the surface.

Curiosity is also way, way, way bigger than the other rovers we've landed--almost five times heavier than Spirit and Opportunity. Landing Curiosity required a hugely more complex delivery system. Short version, we really haven't been doing this particular sort of thing since the 70s--this is a new, much more difficult thing.

Come on now, really? Awesome spacecraft delivery, Awesome rover. Awesome science mission...

None of this is exciting to you, is it?

Alright, how about this. It's fucking Mars!

They parked a huge chemistry lab on ANOTHER FUCKING PLANET. With a hovering crane. How is that NOT exciting?

thanks for all of the explanations. i wasnt trying to be a party pooper, just wanted to know how this mission was different.