NASA has launched the most capable machine, nicknamed Curiosity, ever built to land on Mars.
The 1-tonne rover, tucked inside a capsule, launched from Florida on an Atlas 5 rocket at 10:02 EST (15:02 GMT). The rover will take 8.5 months to fly to Mars.
Mars Science Lab
The landing configuration is a first. Rather than being sheathed in inflated airbags as it lands (as was the case with Sojourner), Curiosty will come down on a powered lander and then be lowered via a tether to the ground. The lander will then set down somewhere else. If Cuuriosity can land safely next August, the robot will then scour Martian soils and rocks for any signs that current or past environments on the planet could have supported microbial life.
The Atlas flight is expected to last almost three-quarters of an hour. The rocket’s first task will be to get the rover capsule into a parking orbit above the Earth, before giving it one final push to send it on its way to Mars.
NASA expects a first communication from the cruising spacecraft at about 11:00 Florida time (16:00). Engineers will then be able to tell if all the systems came through the stresses of launch in good shape.
The rover – also known as the Mars Science laboratory (MSL) – is due to arrive at the Red Planet on the morning of 6 August 2012, GMT.
It is being aimed at a deep equatorial depression called Gale Crater, which contains a central mountain that rises some 5km above the plain below.
The crater was chosen as the landing site because satellite imagery has suggested that surface conditions at some point in time may have been benign enough to sustain micro-organisms. This included pictures of sediments at the base of the peak that were clearly laid down in the presence of abundant water.
MSL is equipped with 10 sophisticated instruments to study the rocks, soils and atmosphere in Gale Crater.
The $2.5bn (£1.6bn) mission is funded for an initial two Earth years of operations, but MSL-Curiosity has a plutonium battery and so should have ample power to keep rolling for more than a decade. It is likely the mechanisms on the rover will wear out long before its energy supply.
Filed under: Mars
