Blog Archive

How Curiosity Will Land on Mars, Part 3: Skycrane and landing

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/07/06 07:01 CDT | 6 comments

The final phase of Curiosity's landing on Mars involves the "skycrane maneuver" and will leave the rover on its wheels ready for its mission on Mars to begin.

Curiosity landing: Powered descent phase

How Curiosity Will Land on Mars, Part 2: Descent

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/29 07:04 CDT | 6 comments

When people first hear about how Curiosity will land on Mars, their first question always is: are they nuts? This is the second in a multi-part series describing how -- and why -- Curiosity will land this way, in excruciating detail.

How Curiosity Will Land on Mars, Part 1: Entry

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/22 07:19 CDT | 14 comments

When people first hear about how Curiosity will land on Mars, their first question always is: are they nuts? This is the first in a multi-part series describing how -- and why -- Curiosity will land this way, in excruciating detail.

Curiosity artist's concept EDL 40 skycrane

Cosmoquest Science Hangout Wednesday June 20 2300 UTC: Ravi Prakash, Curiosity engineer

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/18 05:32 CDT | 1 comments

This Cosmoquest Science Hangout featured Ravi Prakash, Curiosity Entry, Descent, and Landing Systems Engineer. He explained how Curiosity will land on Mars, and why they've changed things since Spirit and Opportunity landed.

In which I visit Mojave Spaceport and meet WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/29 11:51 CDT | 4 comments

It was just a coincidence, but a cool one, that I got a chance to visit the Mojave Spaceport so soon after the dramatic "New Space" success of the launch and Space Station docking of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon. My host was Will Pomerantz. Bill Nye, Mat Kaplan, and I visited The Spaceship Company and Scaled Composites, where they are building the next SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo craft.

Virtual Exploration, Virtually Everywhere

Posted by Jim Bell on 2012/05/14 10:45 CDT

I had the pleasure of participating in a symposium at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center called "Space Exploration via Telepresence: A New Paradigm for Human-Robotic Cooperation."