With the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover set to land on Mars late Sunday night, NASA is preparing a full-court media blitz to cover the event live. In the meantime, numerous Mars landing events are being planned.
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover to be viewed in New York's Times Square
Space.com reports that the giant LED video screen in New York's Time Square will carry the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory. The broadcast will originate from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The coverage will begin at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday and will last until 4 a.m. on Monday.
Landing to be carried on NASA TV
The Sacramento Bee, quoting from a NASA press release, reports that the landing will be carried on NASA Select TV, available on a number of cable services. Live coverage of the event will also be streamed on the Internet, at the NASA TV site and the NASA Superchannel. JPL's Curiosity Cam will carry coverage with live interviews and commentary. The NASA JPL Live Channel will carry raw video feed plus mission audio only.
Star Trek stars narrate Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity video
NASA has produced a video about the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and the complex maneuvers it must make to soft land on Mars called "Seven Minutes of Terror." According to Wired, two versions of the video are available, one narrated by William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the classic "Star Trek" series; the other will be narrated by Will Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Curiosity's landing to be most complex ever
The landing of the Mars Science Laboratory is to be the most complex ever attempted. According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Curiosity will enter the Martian atmosphere at 13,200 miles an hour. This will begin a sequence of events that will take seven minutes until, if all goes well, will see Curiosity on the Martian surface. The spacecraft will use the friction of the Martian atmosphere to slow its descent.
When Curiosity is seven miles above the Martian surface, it will deploy a parachute to further slow its descent. Soon after, the probe will jettison its heat shield. When Curiosity is one mile above the Martian surface, it will jettison the parachute and fire retro rockets. Just before touch down on the Martian surface, the retro rockets shut off and the rover is lowered the rest of the way with nylon cords from the descent stage in what is called a "sky crane maneuver."
The rover touches down on the Martian surface and the descent stage is separated and falls at a distance away from the Rover. If all goes well, the nuclear powered $2.5 billion rover will begin at least a two year mission of exploration of the Martian surface.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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