New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Next Mars rover gets a test taste of Mars conditions

Date:
March 21, 2011
Source:
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Summary:
A space-simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is temporary home for the Curiosity rover, which will land on Mars next year.
Share:
FULL STORY

A space-simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is temporary home this month for the Curiosity rover, which will land on Mars next year.

Tests inside the 25-foot-diameter chamber (7.6-meters) are putting the rover through various sequences in environmental conditions resembling Martian surface conditions. After the chamber's large door was sealed last week, air was pumped out to near-vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit), and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars.

Images of Curiosity in the chamber just before the door was sealed are at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13805 and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13806.

Other portions of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, including the cruise stage, descent stage and backshell, remain in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where Curiosity was assembled and where the rover will return after the simulation-chamber tests. In coming months, those flight system components and the rover will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final preparations before the launch period of Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011.

The mission will use Curiosity to study one of the most intriguing places on Mars -- still to be selected from among four finalist landing-site candidates. It will study whether a selected area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl.


Story Source:

Materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Cite This Page:

NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Next Mars rover gets a test taste of Mars conditions." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 March 2011. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110321101916.htm>.
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (2011, March 21). Next Mars rover gets a test taste of Mars conditions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 14, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110321101916.htm
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Next Mars rover gets a test taste of Mars conditions." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110321101916.htm (accessed December 14, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES