NASA's new rover on its way to Mars

11/27/2011 08:02:00 PM Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Mars, Mars Rover, Mars Rover Landing System, Rover, Space No Comments

New Rover on its way to Mars

(Don't miss the animated video at the end of this article)

Atlas V rockets carrying Curiosity

NASA's new Mars rover system named Curiosity, launched and left earth on Saturday, November 26, 2011. The new Mars rover system was packed and blasted in rocket(Atlas V). This Rover system(Curiosity) carries NASA's bigger and more capable new rover. This lengthy journey is 570-million-kilometer far and it takes around 9 months to reach MARS also known as The RED Planet.

This new rover will have to overcome lot of challenges in space during these 9 month journey. One of these challenges is probably most exciting and that is the innovative way Curiosity(Rover) will be landing on the surface of the Red Planet.

New Curiosity vs Previous ones

Previous MARS rover missions known as 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity', which were of the size of golf carts, were landed on "air bags" dropped from an air craft.(Previous Rover's landing)







This new ROVER is much more biggher and heavier this time. -- it is almost the size of a small car, and weighs 900 kg, interestingly it is equipped with a nuclear power supply (O yeah !)  and 10 scientific instruments

Rover's Parts

Landing Pattern

NASA team this time will lower the rover on cables known as the -- "skycrane maneuver." in which it will be descended just like commandos descend from helicopter during war.i.e. through rappelling. 

skycrane maneuver

NASA has prepared a computer animation which you can see below to understand it completely.