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Mars Curiosity Rover... to land 10:31 pm 8/5/2012

Pavonis said:
Except for the similar photo that MRO took of Phoenix as it was landing near the martian north pole in 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix_Lander_seen_from_MRO_during_EDL2.jpg

And the Mars Odyssey photo taken by the Mars Global Surveyor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mgs_odyssey.gif
Click to expand...
Oh, I nearly forgot about the Phoenix one. Amazing stuff. In the Curiosity one though you can see much more detail (assuming that the parachute details in the dark one are post-processing filters, and not retouching). It's uncanny.

Not that those two aren't any less hair-rising when you think what's on them and where they are shot.
 
Curiosity's chute is twice the size of Phoenix's chute. That's why you can see more detail. Though the parachute lines are visible on Phoenix but not Curiosity.
 
Curiosity sends back its first color image:

Resized image;

MarsRover2.jpg



It's blurry because a lenscap is still on the camera that has yet to be removed.
 
^ :lol:

In a few days the Rover will either send back images of two suspicious looking men in spacesuits approaching a cargo container or a man who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, gasping for breath with his eyeballs bulging from their sockets.
 
That's one thing that got me with the cheering in mission control on this one. Usually the NASA image is the cool and calm "steely-eyed missile man" reaction to a success. I can't help but think that after seeing how much good press the SpaceX control room got from it's cheering video back in June that someone in NASA put a memo out saying "OK guys, dress casual and CHEER if it goes well".
 
Hmmm ... that's funny, Sojourner, I seem to recall quite a bit of cheering in Mission Control for the Apollo missions and Viking landings. But that might be a botched recollection on my part. I definitely don't remember any conga lines like these guys were practically doing before the 2:30 am press conference, though!

But, to be fair, it was 2:30 a.m. and I bet half of them had been thinking two hours earlier, "This'll never work!"
 
I remember quite the cheering when Sojourner landed as well. With it it was a unique craft they were landing on Mars with a even more unique method (drop it and hope these airbags prevent things from breaking.) With Spirit and Opportunity there was some measure of assurance things would work as there wasn't anything too unique or risky about what they were trying after success of Sojourner.

Here with Curiosity... Well, given how complicated the "landing" process was with everything needing to work and needing to pretty much work perfectly, yeah, it was quite the accomplishment when everything worked perfectly.
 
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sojourner said:
That's one thing that got me with the cheering in mission control on this one. Usually the NASA image is the cool and calm "steely-eyed missile man" reaction to a success. I can't help but think that after seeing how much good press the SpaceX control room got from it's cheering video back in June that someone in NASA put a memo out saying "OK guys, dress casual and CHEER if it goes well".
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's very uncharacteristic of them. I think they were trying to imitate these guys, though.
 
Am I the only one hoping a giant humanish shadow picks up Curiosity and crushes it, while it records the whole thing on camera? Is that too Michael Bayish? :rommie:
 
It could be cool, but since it probably wouldn't be able to transmit the images back after it has been destroyed, all we'll get is a mysterious lost signal with no explanation.

Which means there will be tons of food for conspiracy theorists should the rover die early. I hope they don't waste such opportunity like they did with the creature that was cleaning the solar panels of the other rovers!
 
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