2009 land rover
NASA’s Curiosity rover is about to be launched into the Martian atmosphere. Curiosity will be the first step in the process that will bring a new understanding of the Martian system to the fore in the coming months.
Once the Mars Science Laboratory Mission – the company behind the Curiosity mission – is up and running, its spacecraft is going to take on the challenge of learning about Mars and its mysterious surface.
“If it’s there for me to see it in December or January, I think that’s my best hope at this point,” Mars scientist Chris Hadfield told CBS San Diego last month.
Hadfield and his team have been working for the last five years to build a detailed view of the Martian system. Their goal is to learn how a different body formed the surface of the Earth and what features make up the landscape, including the thick clay of Mars and the surface’s rugged ice.
Hadfield said during a Q&A session last month that he’d been trying to figure out how to get an idea of the Martian surface before Curiosity is launched – at a cost of about $4 billion.
“That’s the reason I’m very happy that it came out of NASA’s hands so easily,” Hadfield said.
But now, with Curiosity on board, and with the new Mars Science Laboratory a mere 30 days away, that is
2009 land rover mission.” The probe landed on August 29, 2001, on Gale Crater. The mission was named after Professor Albert A. A. Taylor, who was a pioneer in the study of life and the planet in the 1940s.
The Discovery Mission was launched in 2001 by the European Space Agency which was renamed ESA. It was funded by the US Department of Defense and is dedicated to scientific exploration of Earth’s atmosphere and natural systems.
Astronauts aboard the DSPE-X will see:
The Discovery Mission consists of 10 satellites capable of tracking the sun, planets, stars and comets. The probe, known as an “Observator,” is a high-resolution radar instrument with a 20-metre resolution. The probe is the first to use ultra-wide bandwidth radio dishes to collect observations as well as to track low energy plasma particles. It will use a computer-controlled instrument, the Mast Camera, for data analysis of the sun and other objects.
The mission is planned for launch on April 16, 2005. It will also include an observation of Mars.
A representative for the European Space Agency (ESA) also shared his thoughts.
2009 land rover