We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
NASA IS PLANNING to land its Mars rover craft onto the red planet in August and has narrowed the projected landing zone.
Although the car-sized rover ‘Curiosity’ will now land closer to the area where it will carry out science operations while on Mars, the narrowed landing zone is closer to the foot of a mountain slope that could pose a hazard to the rover’s safe landing.
Curiosity is scheduled to carry out a two-year project on Mars to test whether the mountain area by the landing zone was ever an environment conducive to microbial life.
The rover is equipped with a robot arm which can bring scientific instruments into direct contact with the planet’s surface and a last to analyse the elemental composition of vaporised materials.
Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), says that the narrowed zone will cut the distance Curiosity has to travel to its ultimate destination on the planet by about a half, meaning it would arrive there months quicker.
The landing target ellipse has been scaled down to 7km by 20km from its original projection of 20km by 25km, and it is due to touch down on Mars on 6 August.
Dave Lavery of the Mars Science Laboratory says that preparation for the landing has been underway for years “and all sings are good”.
“However, landing on Mars always carries risks, so success is not guaranteed,” he adds. “Once on the ground we’ll proceed carefully. We have plenty of time since Curiosity is not as life-limited as the approximate 90-day missions like NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers and the Phoenix lander.”
MSL scientists also say that tests carried out since the mission launched in November 2011 suggest that debris coming from a drill the rover will use to collect rock samples could mix with those samples. However, drill material is not expected to prevent analysis of the carbon content of the samples, which will be tested by onboard instruments to identify their mineral and chemical compositions.
As of today, the rover mission has travelled 465,763,475km – and has another 101,303,095km to go:
(NASA image)
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Its amazing the technology and science that’s out there yet we cannot solve the problem of world hunger especially in a lot of parts of Africa where millions of people die every year.
Course we can, however between wars and different conflicts it makes it hard to grow food and build water systems esp if they will be destroyed or stripped of valuable metals
We can, that’s what makes it even worse.
Amazing with all our technology we can land on Mars but still not use spell-checker. Come on journal.ie
The problem there is capitalism, not technology.
Hopefully, it’ll land successfully. Should be interesting if it does.
They should send Phil Hogan there. Just tell him, that’s where the people went who did not pay the household charge.
Brilliant Thomas. Plenty of room for a few more too. Special Government Advisors, so called Hospital Administrators, Half of the HSE, the odd cleric, some TV personalities and all of the Tallaghfornia crew. Dont forget the Real Estate Developers, Twink and a few bankers. Just tell them we’ll be following them later and if they can make a head start, that’ll be great.
ciara would love this !!!!
I wonder why they chose the base of the mountain to land the rover?
Could they not have just chosen a relatively level area close by and then examine from there to the base?
Like, the thing has traveled a fair distance to take a chance on it.
I dunno, maybe I just don’t understand it enough.
But I think that it’s too precious a mission to fail.
have your say