Early on August 6, 2012, NASA’s rover Curiosity executed a perfect landing after an eight-month journey took it an astonishing 325 million miles to Mars, a planet roughly 130 million miles from Earth. It was a huge leap forward for America’s space program and for human exploration of our solar system. It reminded us that our innate curiosity leads to great feats of discovery, scientific advancement and improvement of the human condition. And it was a breathtaking moment of national pride and wonder.
The team of NASA scientists and engineers who guided Curiosity on her long voyage endured “seven minutes of terror” as the spacecraft guided itself through a multi-step descent through Mars’s atmosphere, from a starting point of 13,000 miles per hour to a feather-light landing. The euphoria they felt at the safe touchdown was surely unmatched. But as the first pictures were beamed back to Earth, those of us who have fought to maintain our space program did feel our own extra measure of joy.Continue Reading
I have long maintained that America’s space program is an investment we cannot afford to shortchange. Science and research fuel both our financial and intellectual economy. Breakthroughs in healthcare, missile defense, even everyday products we use at home have come from NASA research. Some of these innovations were planned, others were pure happenstance. But all have made our lives better and created new products which, in turn, have created jobs and expanded the economy. The Mars rover offers almost limitless possibility for the same.
Both the rover itself and its unique delivery system represent engineering feats of historic proportions. Her landing bore out a new “guided flight” system for entering the Martian atmosphere, executing a perfect landing within its target area - in fact, almost perfectly at its center. Guided flight technology will be crucial for future Mars-bound spacecraft carrying crew members and it lays the scientific foundation for leaps forward in commercial aviation safety and reliability.
As Curiosity explores Mars, she will employ dozens of new technologies that will pave the way for development of new American industries and jobs. The signals the rover generated as she descended into the thin Martian atmosphere were referred to as “heartbeats”. And one of the first orders of business after landing was a “brain change”, the installation of new software from 130 million miles away to help control her ground-based activities. She - and the team does refer to Curiosity as a “she” - will use her “arm”, which has a “shoulder”, an “elbow” and a “wrist”, to probe the secrets of Gale Crater and Mount Sharp. Curiosity’s ChemCam rock-blasting laser will allow instant chemical analysis of Martian soil and rocks. She will both navigate and share the view with us through her 3-D camera “eyes.”