What Is Curiosity? Everything You Need To Know About NASA’s Mars Rover
Ever since 1969, space explorations has been so repetitive; it’s just rocket after rocket to launch a new satellite or fix some parts on the International Space Station. Where has the sense of real adventure gone? Space is such a vast frontier and we have yet to really discover what’s on that strange red planet so close to our humble home. Now there is a new scout to re-kindle our desire to roam the wild outer worlds.
Curiosity is definitely not the first machine to land on Mars or even to survive and communicate back to the homebase. That title belongs to the Sojourner rover riding on the Mars Pathfinder; it landed on July 4th, 1997 and lost connection on September 27th of the same year. The Spirit rover landed right after the New Year of 2004 on January 4th and roamed almost 5 miles of the Mars landscape until its wheels got stuck in the sand on January 26th 6 years later; it stayed active there for another two months before communication was lost permanently. The Spirit had a companion on the red planet, the Opportunity, that has stayed active and rolling even today
Landing on Mars is not really an exact science, so trying to assume what the conditions will be like and how to handle them is a huge consideration in designing the capsule containing the precious rover cargo. While the diagram above looks like a simple float down through the atmosphere, the container is trying to slow down from 13,000 miles per hour to zero in order to land safely and not be burned up in the process
http://www.gizmocrazed.com/2012/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nasas-mars-rover
