I have always had a fascination with Mars, which was spurred on even more when in July 1997, I watched the images coming in from the Sojourner rover, and again when Spirit and Opportunity landed.
The exploration on Mars has been painfully slow, at least for me, growing up in the early 80's thinking we would be sending manned missions by now, but with the advent of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, we have the next best thing...
Curiosity.
Not only is Curiosity much bigger than the twin rovers of Spirit and Opportunity, it is also better able to manage the terrain (hopefully avoiding a repeat of when Spirit got permanently stuck), and carries more scientific apparatus to better examine the environment, too many to list. More information can be found here.
She is due to land in Gale crater on August 6th 2012 using a descent system called the sky-crane:
I for one am very much looking forward to August of 2012, I believe that this rover may unveil things about Mars that will greatly increase our understanding of the evolution of rocky planets which in turn can only be good for future space exploration. It may even uncover signs of current or past microbial life, I can always hope I suppose....
No comments:
Post a Comment