{"id":19728,"date":"2012-08-03T19:36:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T11:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/super-awesome-curiosity-approaches-mars-set-for-seven-minutes-of-terror\/"},"modified":"2012-08-03T19:36:24","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T11:36:24","slug":"super-awesome-curiosity-approaches-mars-set-for-seven-minutes-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/super-awesome-curiosity-approaches-mars-set-for-seven-minutes-of-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Super awesome \u2018Curiosity\u2019 approaches Mars, set for \u2018Seven Minutes of Terror\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-52464\" title=\"Curiosity 300\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Curiosity-300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Curiosity-300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Curiosity-300-200x150.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">The plan to land the roving space lab Curiosity on Mars this weekend is the stuff of the wildest imaginations. Seriously, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick would\u2019ve killed for this storyline in \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In what is being hailed as one of the most challenging space maneuvers ever, NASA\u2019s Curiosity will endure the \u201cSeven Minutes of Terror,\u201d or a sequence of highly technical, complicated and downright acrobatic moves, that must be perfectly executed for the craft to land safely on the surface of Mars. The mission\u2019s purpose is to find any evidence of life, past or present, on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted,\u201d says John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate in <em>Science News<\/em> magazine. \u201cThis is risky business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you watch nothing else all day, please make it be this video. It doesn\u2019t just explain the landing, it lays out all the science and amazing engineering in a super-suspenseful, nail-biting, will-it-or-won\u2019t-it-make-it? way. It is nothing short of phenomenal:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ISmWAyQxqqs\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This <em>TIME<\/em> magazine piece does a superb job of explaining the landing, too.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some other fun factoids gathered about the Curiosity Mars Landing to bring you up to speed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Curiosity launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Nov. 26, 2011, and is scheduled to land Sunday, Aug. 5, at 10:30 p.m. PT.<\/li>\n<li>Curiosity is about twice as long (about 3 meters or 10 feet) and five times as heavy as NASA\u2019s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003.<\/li>\n<li>It will barrel toward Mars at as astonishing 13,000 mph, or 21,250 k\/h, only to be slowed by a combination of the largest parachute NASA\u2019s built to date, rockets and a \u201csky crane\u201d to safely lower it to the surface.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s destination is Gale Crater, 154 km wide, and Mount Sharp.<\/li>\n<li>Transmissions from the Curiosity take 14 minutes to reach NASA scientists, creating that \u201cseven minutes of terror\u201d they speak of on the landing, the time it will take once it enters Mars\u2019 atmosphere to hit the surface\u2026the seven-minute lag will mean that NASA scientists will have no idea if it made it or not during that time period.<\/li>\n<li>It will carry an onboard camera that is set to capture the entire experience and broadcast its findings back to Earth.<\/li>\n<li>Cost? A cool $2.5 billion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can watch on your own at home (here\u2019s the NASA TV schedule) or get together with others. Several Seattle-area events will celebrate this stellar space event, tipped off to us by Sally James of the Northwest Science Writers Association (thanks, Sally!), highlighted below:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mars Landing Watch at the Kenney:&nbsp;<\/strong>Alice Enevoldsen from the Pacific Science Center and \u201cAstroInfo\u201d has put together this event. It\u2019s free, it\u2019s open to everyone, and it\u2019s at the Kenney, 7125 Fauntleroy Way SW. She suggests arriving by 10 p.m. Sunday to get settled in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Museum of Flight<\/strong>: MarsFest 2012 is at the Museum, 9404 E. Marginal Way S., starting at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. It is a free, family-friendly party that will feature Mars-related games, activities, guest speakers and a live link to the Planetary Society\u2019s Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena, Calif., starring Bill Nye. And, of course, the \u201cseven minutes of terror\u201d will be shown on a big screen via a live link to the NASA feed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pacific Science Center:<\/strong> &nbsp;The Discovery Corps, 200 Second Ave. North, is holding a day-after party, watching the landing at 12:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 6, in case you missed it the night before. Or if you just want to relive the glory. And if you just can\u2019t wait until Sunday, the Center is showing \u201cSky Tonight\u201d daily showings that are focused on Curiosity and new NASA content and images, appropriate for kids grade two and up.<\/p>\n<p>Happy landings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The plan to land the roving space lab Curiosity on Mars this weekend is the stuff of the wildest imaginations. Seriously, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick would\u2019ve killed for this storyline in \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d In what is being hailed as one of the most challenging space maneuvers ever, NASA\u2019s Curiosity will endure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2927,4450,190,4918],"class_list":["post-19728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-curiosity","tag-museum-of-flight","tag-nasa","tag-pacific-science-center"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}