It Actually Made It!

[Aegean]

I have to say I'm completely impressed with the landing of the Curiosity probe early this morning. I watched a documentary on BBC iPlayer a few nights ago and, after seeing the huge number of things that could go wrong with this incredibly complicated landing, its amazing everything worked as planned. A real feat of human technology.

Basically atmosphere entry with heatshield, followed by a drone chute slowdown, then heat shield exit, deployment of 'skycrane' with retro-rockets which then lowers the rover to the surface via cables, cables cut and skycrane moved out of way. Amazing.

 

[Bailey]

Amazing stuff, couldn't wait to hear the news this morning. It would have been terrible after all the work and incredible landing-sequence had the 'rover' been lost. can't wait to see the first hi-res images

 

[cc976a]

If fascinates me the precission so far away with so many uncertainties.

I'm waiting for the 2015 arrival of the first probe to reach Pluto, over 10 years in the making. Even Hubble telescope can only make out a fuzzy blob, will be fascinating to see the first photos.

 

[mojoco]

Nice clip here about Curiosity, narrated by William Shatner.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/08/02/mars-probe-curiosity-is-ready-to-land-on-monday/

 

[tifosi]

Just hoping that all the bits work as expected otherwise it will be just a very expensive remote controlled toy!

 

[Pred]

they got pretty excited at nasa
think they're going to have to hand out condoms like the olympic village later lol

 

[mojoco]

Below is the first batch of awesome photos received at Mission Control from Curiosity

 

[websaway]

Very good

 

[Bailey]

They've unfortunately lost the "wind sensors" probably due to grit and stones being thrown-up by the landing sequence according to NASA (but it's a small price for the rest all being A1).

I follow the reports and downloads every day - wonderful stuff.

 

[martin-s]

All this talk about space, you'd have thought someone would jump at the chance of owning moonlanding.co.uk which dropped recently! (5.4k exacts)

 

[Bailey]

All this talk about space, you'd have thought someone would jump at the chance of owning moonlanding.co.uk which dropped recently! (5.4k exacts)

Every dog (read domain) has its day

 

[Aegean]

Below is the first batch of awesome photos received at Mission Control from Curiosity

lol that made me laugh!