On course, all systems go.

[crfriend]

Well, at the moment things look good for the Mars Science Laboratory, aka "MSL" or more colloquially, "Curiosity", to touch down on -- or, more precisely, to be gently lowered onto -- the Martian surface on Monday morning around 05:31 UTC. The trajectory looks so good that the boffins in charge of navigation have foregone the final opportunity for a course-correction.

Here's hoping that the latest rover -- one cannot call this one "little" by any stretch -- finds not only a history of life on the Red Planet but hints that it still exists! If so, it'd be proof -- once and for all -- that we are not alone in the cosmos. I, for one, would be thrilled to see the fallout from that discovery!

Onward, Curiosity, and best wishes for a soft landing and a productive expedition of discovery. May you live up to your name!

[crfriend]

Still on target. This video shows what'll happen in the terminal stage as Curiosity nears, and is then lowered to, the surface.

Indeed, Dare mighty things. 'Cause we're not allowed to here on Earth, or at least not in my neck of the woods.

[crfriend]

Whilst I slept fitfully, pondering my upcoming exit from the middle class, "Curiosity" landed successfully on Mars and sent back a couple of crude monochrome images to prove that things are working well. It'll take a week or so to get everything up and running, but things look pretty good "out there".

[skirtingtoday]

Good to hear the "Curiosity" had landed safely.

I saw a model of it in the Alder Planetarium in Chicago when I was there recently and it looked impressive. Hope the mission goes well and that some questions are answered though I would expect there to be even more questions asked during its journey!

I mentioned in "sightings in the wild" section about a fellow in a utility type kilt there - looked good too!

[crfriend]

Good to hear the "Curiosity" had landed safely.

Indeed! Even more amazing is that one of the orbiters actually caught it in the act whilst still under the parachute.

[skirtingtoday]

Yes - an amazing photo of the landing parachute. Just saw it on the BBC website before I logged in here.

Looking forward to the High Definition pics coming through later in the week.

[Kirbstone]

Absolutely amazing! The stuff of science fiction novels come true. The whole thing is an inspired design & I'm looking forward to the pics. now. No doubt our 'Astronomy & space' mag. will be full of it next and in succeeding months.

In a previous surface pic. taken by an earlier lander there were McDonnald golden arms just on the horizon to the left. I was snacking there just as Curiosity landed and it's a miracle when the sky crane part flew off after dropping it that it missed McDonnald's altogether! The designers obviously couldn't give a toss where the thing flew off to once it had successfully delivered its precious load.

T.

[Uncle Al]

Is this the first picture from Mars





Uncle Al

[Kirbstone]

At the recent Olympics opening ceremony lots of parading athletes made faces at some of the trackside cameras & I expect this guy saw 'Curiosity' coming!

T.

[straightfairy]

Could be worse.



or even



I mean, what are the chances?

a million to one?

[Kirbstone]

When you consider all those bits flying around when Curiosity landed I think we were very lucky indeed at the local McDonalds not to have been hit!

They're promising us better resolution pics of the bits later on. The satelite pic. of the parachute and lander approcahing was an amazing co-incidence and totally unreal. It's fascinating to be alive when such feats of precision engineering planning are taking place in real time.

T

[r.m.anderson]

A picture showed a relatively flat plain - the detail was not all that clear as when 'Curiosity' landed it
stirred up a bit of Martian dust that had coated the lens of the camera(s?).
Hope this is not going to be a big problem !
Maybe they skipped the optional 'rover' gear - the windshield wiper (windscreen for you UK folk).
Or just maybe they need to do a shake down cruise to cause the dust to return to the Martian surface.
Time will tell.

rma

[crfriend]

A picture showed a relatively flat plain - the detail was not all that clear as when 'Curiosity' landed it
stirred up a bit of Martian dust that had coated the lens of the camera(s?).
Hope this is not going to be a big problem !

The "engineering cameras" (those which are mainly used for driving the rover and hazard avoidance) were equipped with clear dust-covers that have since been popped open. The "hand lens camera" has a way to clear dust off it, although I'm not sure off-the-cuff as to what it is, and I suspect that there are ways to clear the other high-resolution camera lenses as well. Dust on the engineering cameras won't affect the data to be captured as that uses the hi-resolution devices.

The next step -- and most important for the mission -- will be to run the diagnostics on all the components attached to the end of the arm as this is where the "heavy lifting" will be done when it comes to information gathering.

Considering that this was a powered landing, I'm surprised that there wasn't more dust kicked up.

[skirtingtoday]

I see that all the systems tests have just about been completed and that the "Curiosity" rover is set to start its serious scientific work and drive up to various targets.

It's first target is a meteor crater about 400m away - and at a rate of 4cm/s max speed, it will be a few days before it gets there! It seems that there are three different rock types expected there (from satellite images).

[Jack Williams]

Yes, I too am looking forward to some great photos from "Curiosity".