Curiosity...

[speedbird591]

Because of the thin atmosphere on Mars, parachutes are not reliable enough to ensure a successful landing...hence the rockets for the last part...It is a really expensive egg to break in the final moments of its arrival

Thanks for focussing us back on the huge technical challenges, Peter. There are so many opportunities for one small malfunction to reduce the whole thing to a horrible mess. But what an incredible achievement if they can pull it off.

Of course, our fatuous remarks here don't reflect our real feelings towards the mission. In mitigation of my own comments, I'd just like to say that it's all Brian's fault - he started it!

Ian

[petermcleland]

Thank you Ian,

I find it very exciting and I'm keenly looking forward to the landing...Not long to go now

[Chris Trott]

Also, the "soft landing" technique isn't new. It was used to put the last 2 rovers on Mars, they just didn't trust it enough to take it all the way to landing and enclosed the rovers in protective airbags that were dropped from a short height. Since both of those landings worked well, they decided that to be able to put a bigger rover down they couldn't still use the bags and the performance of the rockets prior was beyond expectations so why not let them land the rover completely?

Think of this too, we'll have to use some form of powered landing when we send our first people up there, so I'd rather start testing techniques with rovers than people.

My bigger concern is trying to put the thing so close to the mountain. Get the atmospheric braking maneuvers wrong by a couple meters per second and it goes splat on the mountainside.

[FlyTexas]

In mitigation of my own comments, I'd just like to say that it's all Brian's fault - he started it!

Ian

Brian

[petermcleland]

Latest news...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18861463