Mars - Curiosity: 7 Minutes of Terror

[Paratus]

If you haven't seen this check out how they intend to land the Curiosity rover on Mars. It's awesome and insane.

7-minutes (Gizmodo)

Just think about the process:

1. First, the rockets of the aeroshell—a protective armor that will protect the MSL and guide it through its descent—will fire to steer the capsule towards the desired angle.

2. When this is achieved, a long parachute will open to slow down the Mars Science Laboratory as it zooms down the Martian atmosphere.

3. Then, as soon as the capsule slows down, the heat shield will eject, leaving the rover exposed inside the aeroshell, attached to the floating crane mechanism.

4. That's when the whole landing process gets cray cray: The floating crane's rockets will fire up, further slowing the descent.

5. The top part of the aeroshell will then detach completely, leaving the sky crane alone holding the MSL rover, slowly descending towards the planet's surface.

6. A few hundred meters above the terrain, the floating sky crane will start lowering the rover down using "a trio of bridles and one umbilical cord" until it touches down.

7. At that time, the sky crane will detach from the rover and fly away to crash far from the landing site.

 

[busydude]

Holy shit snacks! That was amazing.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Yikes. Seems like a lot of opportunity for something to fuckup and lose the whole mission. "Terror" is right.

How did they land the first rovers?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Why does it seem like this is one of those things they over thought by a butt load?

Crazy stuff. Hope it works.

 

[purbeast0]

thanks for the link. that is freaking awesome. almost seems like a 1 in a million shot that it will work like they hope, but really cool nonetheless. it will be interesting august 5th to see the outcome.

 

[Paratus]

MSL is too heavy for the airbag drop like the other rovers so this is what they came up with.

There is definitely a lot that could go wrong. Only about half of all Mars missions by every country to try one have actually been successful. So if it crashes it won't be the first.

 

[TXHokie]

That does seem terribly complicated. What happened to the bouncy ball landing? That worked out well.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Maybe they made 2 at twice the price, just in case the first fails.

 

[Paratus]

That does seem terribly complicated. What happened to the bouncy ball landing? That worked out well.

Like I mentioned it's too heavy for the airbag landing.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

MSL is too heavy for the airbag drop like the other rovers so this is what they came up with.

There is definitely a lot that could go wrong. Only about half of all Mars missions by every country to try one have actually been successful. So if it crashes it won't be the first.

i think half is being generous

 

[Childs]

Pretty bad ass. I wonder if they'll televise it.

 

[Number1]

NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity, which will land on the Red Planet in August.

New landing target pic

 

[olds]

Pretty bad ass. I wonder if they'll televise it.

This

 

[AznAnarchy99]

That made me want to watch the landing.

 

[KaOTiK]

If this works, NASA will be making Hollywood's crazy ideas look not so crazy anymore, lol

 

[PottedMeat]

Maybe they made 2 at twice the price, just in case the first fails.

i thought they always do. one goes up, the identical other stays for troubleshooting.

 

[wirednuts]

this rover is the size of a small car. think about it. how else can you go from 1000mph to a soft landing?

it might seem overthought, but this is the simplest way to do it. and the pheonix mission proved they could land with rockets, so adding the skycrane thing is really trivial.

 

[wirednuts]

If this works, NASA will be making Hollywood's crazy ideas look not so crazy anymore, lol

the parachute and the rockets are already mars mission proven. the only difference is they stop 30ft or whatever above the ground and they hoist the rover down, which is very simple.

 

[Jeff7]

Mars Science Lab: 7 minutes of terror.
Phoenix: Also 7 minutes of terror.
Mars Exploration Rovers: 6 minutes of terror.

Come on NASA, you need to find a tagline other than "X minutes of terror" here. I hear that Mars is sometimes called "The Red Planet." Maybe you should try something really creative like that instead.

 

[yhelothar]

Talk about mission impossible...

Murphy's law will be hard to beat on this one!

 

[Bignate603]

i thought they always do. one goes up, the identical other stays for troubleshooting.

I saw one of the rovers they kept behind for troubleshooting. They actually were planning on building an exact model of the landing area after they got the rover on the ground and could take some pictures. They'd stick the extra rover in the middle of it and then test every single command on their setup on earth before it was sent to the rover on mars.

 

[Dominato3r]

There's a 5fps camera under it that will broadcast it landing live

 

[SirStev0]

crazy.

 

[wirednuts]

I saw one of the rovers they kept behind for troubleshooting. They actually were planning on building an exact model of the landing area after they got the rover on the ground and could take some pictures. They'd stick the extra rover in the middle of it and then test every single command on their setup on earth before it was sent to the rover on mars.

i thought i heard this one will be much more automated, so it doesnt take 3 days to send and listen for the most basic commands...

 

[ussfletcher]

this rover is the size of a small car. think about it. how else can you go from 1000mph to a soft landing?

it might seem overthought, but this is the simplest way to do it. and the pheonix mission proved they could land with rockets, so adding the skycrane thing is really trivial.

Correct, its roughly the size of a Mini Cooper.

[brag] I was working on embedded systems on it on one of my internships. I also have my name inscribed on a golden plaque that it carries. [/brag]

I've posted some pictures elsewhere, let me see if I can dig them up.

Edit: Found them, the first two are of the model, as the real thing was being assembled in a giant clean room, which we see in the last picture. Oh also bear in mind I took these in 2009 on a an old Windows Mobile phone.