MSL (Curiosity)

Launch data: Designation  37936 / 11070A Launch date  26 Nov 2011 - 15:02:00 UT  (10:02 EST) Launch site  CC, SLC-41 Launch vehicle  Atlas-V/541 (AV-28) Mission  Mars probe/rover Heliocentric orbit Perihelion / Aphelion   A.U. Eccentricity   Inclination   deg Period   min 1st version flight of rocket

MSL during its cruise phase between launch and approach to Mars Sky crane maneuver during the descent of NASA's Curiosity rover to the Martian surface Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Spacecraft data: Prime manufactor  Boeing Lockheed Martin Platform   Operator  NASA Mass at launch  3839 kg Dry Mass   kg Basic shape   Dimensions (m)   Solar array  Solar cells (cruise stage) Stabilization   DC power   Design lifetime

The image was taken May 26, 2011, in Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity: The Next Mars Rover

Schematic diagram

Descriptions:

• MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) is a NASA rover scheduled to launch in December 2011 and perform a precision landing on Mars in Aug 2012. being three times as heavy as the MERs that landed in 2004, it will carry more advanced and elaborate scientific instrument suite than any other mission to Mars.
• The 3839 kg spacecraft design for Mars Science Laboratory consists of:
  • The 899 kg Curiosity Rover, a wheeled vehicle with science instruments for discoveries on the martian surface.
  • Entry, Descent, & Landing System: Configuration for entry into the martian atmosphere. Includes the aeroshell (the heatshield and backshell), the parachute, and a "sky crane" lander structure:
    The rover is attached to a rocket-powered descent stage 'skycrane' with a mass of around 1370 kg including 387 kg of hydrazine fuel; both are encased in an aeroshell consisting of a 385 kg heat shield, a 349 kg backshell, and eight jettisonable balance masses (two 75 kg masses jettisoned prior to Mars atmosphere entry and six 25 kg masses jettisoned later).
  • Cruise Stage: Configuration for travel between Earth & Mars.
    This entry assembly is delivered to Mars by a 539 kg cruise stage which will steer the vehicle during the trans-Mars coast.

Mission details:

• Atlas V serial AV-028 took off from complex 41 at 1502:00 UTC on Nov 26, 2011 and after jettison of four solid boosters emerged from the atmosphere at around 1505 UTC, jettisoning the payload fairing and the CFLR (Centaur Forward Load Reactor, which connects the Centaur to the fairing). At 1513 UTC MSL/Centaur entered a 165 x 324 km x 35.5 deg parking orbit. At 1533 UTC Centaur reignited for the trans-Mars insertion burn; at 1541 UTC the engines shut down and at 1544 UTC MSL separated from the Centaur. MSL and Centaur are on a hyperbolic Earth orbit and will depart the Earth-Moon system on Dec 1. MSL's solar orbit will be 0.98 x 1.53 AU x 1.7 deg, roughly tangent to both the orbits of Earth and Mars. The probe will arrive in the vicinity of Mars in 2012 Aug.
• March 2012: Engineers are shifting the orbits of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey probes, ensuring they have line-of-sight communications with Curiosity as it lands at Gale crater, a 96-mile-wide impact site adorned with rugged rock formations and a colossal central peak.
  The Odyssey spacecraft, which has orbited Mars since late 2001, will be the primary means of monitoring Curiosity's progress during landing. Odyssey will be in view of both Curiosity and Earth, so the orbiter will offer bent-pipe communications, receiving transmissions from the rover and relaying them directly to Earth.
  Without MRO and Odyssey, controllers would lose crucial information on how the $2.5 billion mission performs as it plunges through the Martian atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, deploys parachutes, fires a rocket back and lowers the six-wheeled rover to the surface on a bridle. NASA has never tried such a landing system before, and if it works, it will allow the space agency to place much larger, and heavier, payloads on Mars.
• On Aug 4, 2012 it entered the Martian gravitational sphere of influence on a hyperbola with an inclination of 5.1 deg and periares of -64 km; it entered the Martian atmosphere on Aug 6.
• The Mars Science Laboratory 'Curiosity' landed successfully on Mars on Aug 6, 2012 at 0517:57 UTC. The rover landed in Cydonia's Gale Crater at 137.4402 deg longitude, -4.5918 deg latitude (Gale Crater, 4° 36' 0" S, 137° 12' 0" E).
• The Curiosity landing site in Gale Crater has been named `Bradbury Landing' after writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).
• The sequence of events on Aug 6 were:
  
  

  Time (UTC)	Remarks:
  0500	MSL spacecraft approaching Mars, total mass 3759 kg
  0500:47	MSL Cruise Stage separates (460 kg)
  0505:17	CBMD 1 and CBMD 2 balance weights (75 kg each) separate
  0510:46	MSL entry vehicle, Cruise Stage and CMBD 1/2 all hit the nominal top of the atmosphere 125 km up at an inertial velocity of 6.1 km/s. Entry vehicle mass is 3150 kg Entry location is about 700 km west of the landing site.
  0512	Cruise Stage will be destroyed in the upper Martian atmosphere over Cyclopia, Aeolis Quadrangle
  0514:17	Six 25 kg EBMD balance weights jettisoned, reducing mass to 3000 kg, about 12 km up
  0514?	CMBD 1 and 2 weights impact Martian surface west of Robert Sharp Crater?
  0514:35	Cruise stage separation signal received on Earth
  0515:05	21m diameter parachute deployed, height 10 km, reduce Mars-relative speed from 0.5 to 0.1 km/s  Descent over Aeolis Palus, Gale Crater at 137E 4S
  0515:25	Heatshield jettisoned (385 kg?)
  0515?	EBMD (Entry Balance Mass Device) weights impact surface
  0517?	Backshell jettisoned (about 450kg?) together with parachute (54 kg)  Skycrane begins powered descent with 8 MR-80B hydrazine rockets  Skycrane/Rover mass is now 2115 kg (1728 kg dry plus 387 kg propellant)
  0517:57	Heatshield impacts surface
  0517:?	Backshell impacts surface
  0517:44?	Skycrane hovers at 20m and lowers Rover on 7.5m long cable
  0517:57	Rover touchdown (899 kg), cable release, 829 kg Skycrane scoots off to the side
  0517?	Skycrane impacts surface
  0524:34	Atmosphere entry signals received on Earth
  0531:45	Touchdown signal received on Earth
  0534	First images received showing rover wheel on surface.

  
  Note: Previous Mars missions have typically dumped about 1 tonne each into the Martian atmosphere, with about half that as intact landed mass; MSL sent almost 4 tonnes in with almost 1 tonne landing intact.
• The rover Curiosity, attempting a more precise landing than ever attempted previously, is intended to help assess Mars's habitability. Its primary mission objective is to determine whether Mars is or has ever been an environment able to support life but it will not look for any life itself. It is also intended to analyze samples scooped up from the soil and drilled from rocks.
  
• Imaging by MRO has located the impact sites, of the Skycrane (1.2 km away), heatshield, and parachute (0.6km away) and six EMBDs (10 km away.
• Curiosity's First Year on Mars: Aug 2012 - July 2013

External links:

• NASA: Mars Rover Curiosity Image Gallery