Good Luck Curiosity! (August 4, 2012)

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Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Late Sunday evening, Pacific Standard Time, the latest NASA rover, Curiosity, will land on Mars. NASA coverage starts at 8:30 pm PST with the landing itself happening roughly two hours later. Wingnuts can watch the landing live online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl. Stop by #Wingnut to watch it with us! You can also check out a cool video about the landing here. Curiosity will use a landing procedure that has never been tried before. The video above and image below explain how the new procedure will unfold as the probe descends to the surface. It's worth checking out.

Here's wishing good luck to the entire NASA team including local NASA Wingnut and Flight Commander creator, EddieB on a good mission and safe landing!






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Original update published on August 4, 2012
 
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Successful landing late last night. I felt that the news conference could have used less 'Go USA' from the replies of the team. I was surprised about the Thailand question about turning over the rover to kids, but you could not seriously consider putting a multibillion piece of equipment under the control of amateurs.

Other than that, I do hope that Curiosity does have a very long mission on the surface of Mars.
 
It was pretty cool. The landing happened when I just drank my first coffee this morning (07:00h in Germany) and I was pretty excited.
Actually I had my doubts it would work since the landing procedure was pretty compley with the supersonic chute, the rocket hover and the skycrane maneuver, but I'm glad it worked. They also have one or two pieces of technology aboard the rover that was developed in Germany so I'm also a bit proud it worked. A good day for science! :)
 
Successful landing late last night. I felt that the news conference could have used less 'Go USA' from the replies of the team. I was surprised about the Thailand question about turning over the rover to kids, but you could not seriously consider putting a multibillion piece of equipment under the control of amateurs.
Are you kidding? Every four years, America puts multitrillions' worth of equipment under the control of an amateur :).

Anyway, congratulations to Eddie and all involved at NASA! I know that NASA routinely flies dozens of successful missions, but it feels like it's been ages since the last successful mission of this magnitude - so this must feel real good!
 
Thanks guys, the whole team is just walking on air today. Is there a log of the irc session during the landing, it'd be fun to read.
 
I'm sure LOAF or Chris has one, but I'm not sure who was up then. It was like 1:30 am EST when it happened. I know I was sleeping. :p

Congrats on a job well done Eddie!
 
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