NASA has repeatedly stated that its new mission to Mars, Curiosity, carries no life detector. Yet, Gilbert V. Levin, Experimenter on NASA’s 1976 Viking Mission, disagrees. He says instruments aboard Curiosity can confirm his published claim that his Labeled Release (LR) experiment...
Mars Science Laborat...
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory is tucked inside its Atlas V rocket, ready for launch on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Nov. 26 launch window extends from 7:02 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. PST (10:02 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EST). The launch period for the...
NASA Launches Most C...
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NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST (7:02 a.m. PST). “We are very excited about...
NASA Ready For November Launch of Mars Rover
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NASA’s most advanced mobile robotic laboratory, which will examine one of the most intriguing areas on Mars, is in final preparations for a launch from Florida’s Space Coast at 10:25 a.m. EST (7:25 a.m. PST) on Nov. 25. The Mars Science Laboratory mission will carry Curiosity, a rover with more scientific capability than any ever sent to another planet. The rover is now sitting atop an Atlas V rocket awaiting liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. “Preparations are on track for launching at our first opportunity,” said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion...
Mars Rover Carries D...
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An instrument on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity can check for any water that might be bound into shallow underground minerals along the rover’s path. “If we conclude that there is something unusual in the subsurface at a particular spot, we could suggest more analysis of the...
The Landing-Site Specialist
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Gale crater has been sitting just below the equator of Mars, minding its own business, for at least three and half billion years. But in August 2012, a capsule is going to come screaming out of the sky, then brake its fall by popping a parachute and engaging rocket thrusters. After that, the “sky crane” inside the capsule will activate to lower the subcompact-car-sized Curiosity rover on tethers, suspending it beneath the rest of the craft until the whole assembly descends onto a carefully chosen patch of ground at the northwestern end of the 96-mile-diameter crater. This is how Goddard’s Jim Rice describes the arrival of...
Curiosity: Expendabl...
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, gets ready to be encapsulated and transported to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla., later this month. At Launch Complex 41, the Atlas V rocket was moved from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad on...
Mars Science Laborat...
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In preparation for launch later this year, the “back shell powered descent vehicle” configuration containing NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been placed on the spacecraft’s heat shield. The matchup was performed by technicians at NASA’s...
Microbe Risk When Ro...
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Earth microbes trying to make it to Mars must survive sterilization in NASA’s clean rooms, harsh cosmic rays during months of space travel, and the Red Planet’s unforgiving surface environment. But any bacteria that successfully hitchhike aboard the wheels of NASA’s Mars...
Launch Preparations Report
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project continues to press ahead with launch preparation activities, planning to use additional time before encapsulating the rover in the launch vehicle’s nose cone. Officials want to maintain additional schedule margin for enhanced safety procedures in assembly and testing. System testing put the rover and other parts of the spacecraft through simulations of many activities from launch through operations on Mars’ surface. Aspects of the test simulating the final moments before landing took longer than scheduled. Additional margin that had been built into the schedule has been consumed in...
NASA Prepares Next M...
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NASA’s next Mars rover, the car-size Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is almost ready to fly to the Red Planet. Beginning tomorrow (Aug. 13), technicians at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will begin folding up the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover to pack it inside its heat...
Evidence Builds For Water on Mars
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NASA has chosen a landing site for its next Mars rover with the goal of seeking more signs of historical water on the planet, and a recent study suggests it may find it.New evidence of Mars’ watery past has surfaced, NASA scientists say, suggesting that telltale signs of the wet stuff may lurk under thin layers of rust seen scattered around the Red Planet, in areas that mirror conditions found in Earth’s desert regions. That’s good news for NASA’ Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, which will be launched toward the planet later this year. The rover will land in Gale Crater, the space agency announced Friday...
NASA’s Next Ma...
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NASA’s next Mars rover will land at the foot of a layered mountain inside the planet’s Gale Crater. The car-sized Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is scheduled to launch late this year and land in August 2012. The target crater spans 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter...
NASA to Announce Lan...
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NASA and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will host a news conference at 10 a.m. EDT, Friday, July 22 to announce the selected landing site for the agency’s latest Mars rover. NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage of the event that...
New Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action
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Although NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory will not leave Earth until late this year nor land on Mars until August 2012, anyone can watch those dramatic events now in a new animation of the mission. The full, 11-minute animation, shows sequences such as the spacecraft separating from its launch vehicle near Earth and the mission’s rover, Curiosity, zapping rocks with a laser and examining samples of powdered rock on Mars. A shorter, narrated version is also available, at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=97718982 . Curiosity’s landing will use a different method than any previous Mars landing,...
Two Possible Sites f...
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NASA’s next Mars rover will land either beside the site of a former river delta or beside a mountain of stacked layers. These enticing locations are the two finalists as the Mars Science Laboratory landing sites: Eberswalde crater and Gale crater. Selection of one of those sites is...
Components Delivered...
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An Air Force C-17 transport plane delivered the heat shield, back shell and cruise stage of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on May 12, 2011. The heat shield and back shell together form the aeroshell, which will encapsulate the mission’s...
NASA’s Next Ma...
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Assembly and testing of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is far enough along that the mission’s rover, Curiosity, looks very much as it will when it is investigating Mars. Testing continues this month at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on the...
Work Stopped on Alte...
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The NASA rover to be launched to Mars this year will carry the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument already on the vehicle, providing the capability to meet the mission’s science goals. Work has stopped on an alternative version of the instrument, with a pair of zoom-lens cameras, which...
Advanced NASA Instru...
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will carry a next generation, onboard “chemical element reader” to measure the chemical ingredients in Martian rocks and soil. The instrument is one of 10 that will help the rover in its upcoming mission to determine the past...
NASA Mars Rover Will...
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Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA’s next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean-room workers installed it into the rover. The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all-covering protective garb for these specialized...