Curiosity’s Applauded Landing on Mars – NASA Hopeful for a New Milestone

Technology, US | admin | August 7, 2012 at 6:08 pm

Curiosity’s Applauded Landing on Mars – NASA Hopeful for a New Milestone: NASA’s beloved Mars explorer ‘Curiosity’ landed into a historic crater at the distant red planet on late Sunday, causing roars of celebration to spread through the space station. The historic descent of the NASA space rover through the pink outline of Mars confirms the start of a search operation for signs of life on the planet.

Space scientists are hopeful that this new venture will bring about joyous results for them – the age old search for signs of life seems to come to an exciting conclusion with every passing day. The flawless landing of Curiosity on the planet in itself is a milestone for NASA.

The most tricky and dangerous part of Curiosity’s spaceflight was the seven minute landing which could make or break the entire venture. The nail-biting process came to a splendid end when car sized space rover landed safely with complete precision.

Allen Chen, the deputy head of the space rover’s landing team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, spoke to the media with great enthusiasm. He said that the landing was absolutely unbelievable; it was too good to be true.

Only moments after a perfect descent and landing, Curiosity shot back the first images it captured back to the space station. The images showed the rocky terrain of the mysterious planet and the wheel of the rover.

Mars Science Laboratory is a staggering $2.5 billion project that involves the descent of Curiosity on Mars and exploration of the planet on a whole new level. This is NASA’s first astrobiology mission since the Viking Probes that date back to the 1970s.

President Barack Obama congratulated the space team on this new milestone and called it an unprecedented feat of technology that brings tremendous pride and happiness to the nation today and for years to come.