Yesterday launched successfully from Cape Canaveral, Curiosity is scheduled to arrive on Mars in mid-August 2012. Also known as the "Mars Science Laboratory" (MSL), this robot weighing 900 kg is by far the heaviest and largest of those made so far to examine the surface of Mars and also the most technically advanced, with ten scientific instruments.
Curiosity is "truly a unique robot with a capacity far beyond anything we've launched to another planet in the solar system," pointed out three days before the launch Colleen Hartman, deputy director of NASA's scientific missions. Has six wheels, it also has a mast with high-definition cameras and a laser to study the targets at a distance of seven meters.
Nancy Elements
The laser needs to be regularly calibrated to ensure proper operation and Curiosity wins so different "calibration targets" that were manufactured in the laboratory by the unit Nancy Geology and Mineral Resources Management and Energy (CNRS / University of Lorraine).
Other instruments to look around and especially to detect molecules of methane, a gas often associated with the presence of life on Earth already detected on Mars in some seasons by an American orbiter Mars. Curiosity, a mission of $ 2.5 billion in total, will also measure the radiation could affect future human exploration of Mars. The robot also has a weather station.
After a journey of 570 million km in eight months and a half Curiosity should land on Mars in August 2012 at the foot of a mountain 5000 feet high inside the crater Gale. With Curiosity Mars, "it's like having virtually over 200 researchers to explore this planet is a dream machine," was recently praised Ashwin Vasavada, a leader of this project.
During his exploration mission scheduled to last two Earth years - one Martian year - the robot, powered by a nuclear generator, will attempt to discover whether the Martian environment could be conducive to the development of its past microbial life. To do this, "Gale offers a superb opportunity to test multiple environments potentially favorable to life," said John Grotzinger, chief scientist of the MSL Institute of Technology in Pasadena California. "In the crater where Curiosity will arise - the temperatures range from 90 degrees to zero - is an alluvial fan alluvial probably formed by sediments transported by water," says he. In addition, "layers of land at the base of the mountain containing the clay and sulphate, known to form in water."
Curiosity to ask on Mars, NASA has invented a new technique, the robot is too heavy to be equipped with air bags cushion the impact expected. After deploying a parachute to slow the initial descent is equipped with a device that deposits retrorockets robot gently on the ground.
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