Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet

http://www.space.com/13738-nasa-mars-rover-curiosity-msl-launch.html

by llambda • 15 years ago

50 12 15 years ago

xgenster• 15 years ago

Watched the launch with the kiddies on NASA TV.

Then went outside and saw it come over South Africa. Got a picture of it as well.

To see the little white dots we saw check... http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/igotapicofit.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/picofitand2nd.jpg/

Now I can justify to the wife that I NEED a 15" telescope

-edit-

Sorry, it is more like, see if you can spot the white dots with these pictures. 52mm lens is not that great.

The dots are about 5mm to the left of the arrows

-edit-

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

I see the dots. You definitely need that 15" telescope -- tell her I said so. ;-)

Reminds me a bit of being in the Palm Beach area and seeing a shuttle launch. That's some distance away, but it was still very visible. IIRC, we had binoculars, which made the details much more evident.

Then, a few days later, I looked out the kitchen window to see some rather distinct exhaust plumes. No official announcement. Turns out it was a secret launch/payload, later confirmed in that non-confirming way the government sometimes has.

D_Drake• 15 years ago

Are the dots larger than average chunks of ice from the fuselage?

jakeonthemove• 15 years ago

Congratulations on a successful launch! I just hope it lands without problems - the landing sequence looks quite complicated and this is the biggest probe yet - it would be a real drawback if it failed (like Russia's Phobos-Grunt).

nathanlrivera• 15 years ago

Here is a video of the launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irBg4DvHI6c

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

Simply put: this is the most ambitious space mission since the Apollo program. I hope it succeeds.

adrianwaj2• 15 years ago

I heard Nick Begich say today in an Alex Jones interview that rocket launches punch big holes in the ozone layer, and have done far more damage than CFCs have ever done.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

Solid rockets are bad for the ozone layer, and some launch vehicles use solid rockets, though not all do. The damage is generally only temporary and far less significant than CFCs. Solid rocket exhaust destroys ozone in a one off process, and the ozone will quickly be regenerated via UV dissociation. CFCs catalytically destroy ozone and can reduce ozone levels for extended periods.

mkramlich• 15 years ago

> in an Alex Jones interview

my impression of Alex Jones is the man is at the center of his own little right-wing/conspiracy/propaganda empire. i'd take anything that comes from his direction with skepticism, if not avoided altogether.

adrianwaj2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the tip. He does have some good guests, which makes for interesting viewing. His main problem is that he cuts people off midway before they make their key points or conclusion. And there is no common organized enemy, "the globalists" -- he may as well talk about "the CEOs" or "the Politicians" and these groups do organize around greed, especially "the Bankers."

So yes, when he cuts people off, he replaces the ending with his own agenda. But that's not to say he should be totally ignored, I think.

gallamine• 15 years ago

"NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.

Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011."

I can't imagine how agonizing that decision to delay the launch must have been. "Do we work our asses off to try and meet the launch, and risk 1.5 billion usd, or wait two extra years?" Managers nightmare!

mturmon• 15 years ago

They had been working 24 hour shifts for weeks to make the prior deadline. The delay was mainly due to a problem with the reliability of the mechanical actuators used by the robot. This happens, but it was an embarrassment to all concerned.

I just found a good link to the story:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1319/1

The amount of planning and risk management for large projects like this is amazing. I remember seeing the chart of subsystem deliverables and dependencies for a medium-size instrument (~100M$, far smaller than MSL), printed out from a large-format printer, tacked to a hallway wall. It was about 20 feet long by 4 feet high, printed just large enough to read.

Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet

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