Curiosity

In 1971, the first attempt was made to land a rover on Mars. At the time, NASA experienced more failure than success. Of course by now we are finding more and more answers to the questions that continue to surround Mars. Rover development has made such technological strides since then.  Each robot has specific capabilities, based on what NASA determines best suits the rover's mission. The long term goals that NASA has set for these rovers are to discover characteristics of Mars' climate, geology, and resources to determine if life has been, or could ever be, supported by the planet. Additionally they are preparing for human exploration of the planet.

The first two Mars rovers were launched in 1971 and were developed by Russia, but both attempts failed, as neither of them had a successful landing. On July 4, 1997, the American Mars Pathfinder landed and succeeded in doing some exploration until losing contact three months later. In 2003, the Beagle 2, Spirit and Opportunity were also launched. Up to this point, the Curiosity has been the most successful attempt to explore Mars. It was launched on November 26, 2011 and arrived to Mars on August 6, 2012. Today the rover is still operable and keeps on giving us new insights on the peculiarities of Mars.

Curiosity is doing different kinds of biological, geological and geochemical research, in addition to studying the planetary processes and surface radiation. Curiosity's goals are as follows: to determine whether Mars could have ever supported life, the role of water, the study of the climate and the geology of Mars and the prospects of human exploration. In order to achieve these goals the Mars rover has an impressive collection of tools. It not only has it got a wide range of different cameras installed, but it can also drill in the Martian soil to extract samples, which can be analyzed by the robot itself. As it has its own space laboratory installed, it is able to study the samples it took and send the information to earth.

Curiosity rover finds water in Martian soil

But it is not only the amazing technology that the Mars rover contains that makes it so special. The process it took to land it is also extraordinary. The rover travels in a spacecraft at enormous speed from earth to Mars and the challenge is to slow it down before touching the surface, without any human intervention. It takes 14 minutes for communication to travel to Earth, but the landing process only takes 7 minutes - from the moment the spacecraft reaches the  Martian atmosphere to landing safely and soundly on the surface. Every step throughout this extremely sophisticated and every step of the very tense Entry Descent Landing process has to be pre-programmed. This takes 500.000 lines of COD3 programming with a zero margin for error.

The spacecraft is first slowed down by the atmosphere, but because the Martian atmosphere is much thinner that the one we have at earth, it is not enough. Therefor, NASA invented the biggest and strongest supersonic parachute ever made. This parachute is slowing the shuttle down to 200 mph, but it is still not enough. So during its decent, it gets rid of the heat shield needed for passing through the atmosphere, getting the rocket motors are ready to rock. The shuttle has to make a quick diversion to clear from the parachute that is being detached and in this maneuver it kills the remaining velocity. The radar will start looking for its predetermined spot to land and the moment of truth is drawing near. But the rocket motors can’t breach the surface. The rover will thus be lowered down by cables and land on its own ‘feet’. Than the cables are cut off and the shuttle is able to speed away to make sure it doesn't damage the precious rover. All of this happens without human intervention; everything is programmed. These are called the ‘7 minutes of terror’, in which we on earth are hoping no errors have been made during the years and years of preparation.

More information about Mars Rovers on the NASA website