Mars Mission: Curiosity - Page 38

On August 06 2012 21:44 Left4Cookies wrote:


It's only got a 720p camera though . The next rover will hopefully have a 3D IMAX camera.

On August 06 2012 23:55 Probe1 wrote:

Still better quality than most SC2 tournament streams.

On August 07 2012 00:11 Chargelot wrote:

And broadcasted with less of a delay than NBC has on the Olympics. We need to hire NASA for everything A/V related.

On August 06 2012 14:54 Poyo wrote:



Haha yeah one guy knew what that meant on the planet lol.

On August 07 2012 01:10 Alvin853 wrote:


Pretty sure those were the landing coordinates, and one guy quickly did the math how close to target they landed. They cut out right after that, but it sounded like they were about 2 kilometers from targeted landing site.

Edit: Press Conference going on right now at http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL

Edit 2: check this out, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took a picture of the landing MSL with the parachute deployed:

On August 07 2012 01:56 AlgeriaT wrote:

Mind doing a quick tldr afterwards if you watch it? Unable to watch right now but I am too excited about this thing lol

Also does anyone know when they'll have signals from the rover again/new pics etc?

On August 07 2012 01:10 Alvin853 wrote:


Pretty sure those were the landing coordinates, and one guy quickly did the math how close to target they landed. They cut out right after that, but it sounded like they were about 2 kilometers from targeted landing site.

Edit: Press Conference going on right now at http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL

Edit 2: check this out, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took a picture of the landing MSL with the parachute deployed:

On August 07 2012 02:29 biology]major wrote:
aren't 200+ mph winds common on mars? there is no telling when curiosity can be blown to pieces

On August 07 2012 01:10 Alvin853 wrote:


Pretty sure those were the landing coordinates, and one guy quickly did the math how close to target they landed. They cut out right after that, but it sounded like they were about 2 kilometers from targeted landing site.

Edit: Press Conference going on right now at http://www.ustream.tv/NASAJPL

Edit 2: check this out, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took a picture of the landing MSL with the parachute deployed:

On August 07 2012 03:30 stratmatt wrote:
https://twitter.com/tweetsoutloud

mohawk guy twitter!

On August 07 2012 02:28 Alvin853 wrote:

Sure, Q&A is almost over, so I'll do a quick summary:

First section was about the landing location and orientation of the rover:

The front of the rover is oriented towards the northwest, and the camera is showing the edge of Gale Crater

The back camera is showing the shadow of Curiosity on mars surface, as well as the black dunes and possibly the flank of Mt. Sharp:

They stated the rover is almost level, tilted slightly to the front and to one side, but less than 3 degrees off level. This also means the ground is good enough to support the 1 ton rover without sinking in, so moving around should not be a problem.

Then they talked about the MRO, the picture I already linked, and the job MRO and other orbiters will be doing to relay signals from Curiosity, but also help navigating by mapping out the surrounding area. They hope to take pictures of the landing site within a week, also looking for the other parts of the landing vessel around the landing zone.

Next up is the deployment of the high gain antenna around 11am MSL local time, I don't know how that converts to Earth time, but it's approx 8 hours from now. Then they will be able to get better resolution pictures from the rover, and more science data. So far they checked all the basic systems, and all of the parameters are within safe ranges. Some values are slightly different than expected, and they are looking into that, but nothing alarming that would prevent them from continuing as planned. All of the science equipment is electrically working fine, one of the cameras shows dust under the dust cover, but they hope it will be blown away by winds eventually.

There will be another press conference 4pm PDT today, hopefully presenting new pictures, as well as daily conferences in the morning. They expect to get the pictures from MARDI, the descent imager during mars landing from 3.7km to just before touchdown showing the exact landing location and surroundings for the 4pm press conference.