'Curiosity' to make unusual landing on Mars

[Mike]

The roving Mars Science Laboratory "Curiosity" will attempt a unique landing on the Red Planet in 2012, seen in this dramatic animation + a look at some of the mission's science.

http://www.space.com/11368-curiosity-unusual-landing-mars.html

Look at how this thing is going to land. There are just so many things that could go wrong. i will be amazed if this makes it to the ground safely. Why not just use the bouncing airbag technique that has been used successfully before?

[Mac]

How much fuel must that carry just to 

a) slow it down
b) hover
c) fly away

it got 100% Failure writen all over it.

nice concept though.

If they are going for something as elaborate as that, they might as well put a
nuclear fuel cell on board and build it with ducted fan technology,
that way they can have a flying car.
(Not too sure on the aerodynamics as i cant remember how thich the atmosphere is
which would dictate the fan sizes)

Mac

[mickw]

They could at least have attempted a soft landing with the crane gizmo, that would have given them data for any future attempts even if it failed.

[Ian]

pretty certain you'd have to take your reaction mass with you rather than use ducted fans. The atmosphere is way too tenuous to derive any lift my moving it about.

I'm sure I read somewhere that even though the winds travel at hundreds of miles an hour, you'd never be blown over by them.

Those rockets did seem to burn for a very long time though...

[Tony G]

Short animation of how they expect the landing of Curiosity to be.
If only they had done something like this for Beagle 2, it could have been a completely different outcome.

http://www.wimp.com/curiosityrover/

Tony G

[mickw]

The good thing is that we "know" it's going to end in tears and NASA usually fail to disappoint 

[Tony G]

Sorry Mike.

Tony G

[mickw]

5 days to go for Curiosity touchdown/disaster

Today's APOD -
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html

APOD seem confused over the date 

A bit more -
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

[Mike]

The date is correct, that is early in the morning of the 6th for us.

I'm still very sceptical it will make it down to the ground in one piece but I really hope it does.

[doug]

Did anybody see the Mission to Mars documentary on BBC 2 yesterday evening?  Very explanatory and interesting and let`s hope it is a sucessful landing and deployment of Curiosity. And todays APOD is brilliant......

Fingers crossed, chaps.  

[Fay]

what is the best website to see the landing live? ................................

[Mike]

NASA TV

[Fay]

thanks Mike, is the time correct 6.30am?

[mickw]

It's supposed to be around 5:20 UT so 6:30 ish should be right

[RobertM]

I just hope they've use SI units everywhere this time !