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Curiosity Rover
''Curiosity'' is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Gale crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. ''Curiosity'' was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17:57 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a journey. Mission goals include an investigation of the Martian climate and geology, assessment of whether the selected field site inside Gale has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life (including investigation of the role of water), and planetary habitability studies in preparation for human exploration. In December 2012, ''Curiosity'' two-year mission was extended indefinitely, and on August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the ''Curiosity'' rover landing. On August 6, 2022, a detailed overview of accomplishments ...
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Mars Science Laboratory
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed ''Curiosity'', a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a human mission to Mars. The rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team. Overview MSL successfully carried out the most accurate Martian landing of any known spacecraft at the time, hitting a small target landing ellipse of only , in the Aeolis Palus region of Gale Crater. In the event, MSL achieved a landing east and north of the center of the target. This location is near the mountain Aeolis Mons (a.k.a. "Mount Sharp"). The rover mission is set to explore for at least 687 Earth days (1 Martian year) over a range of . The Mars Science Laboratory mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term e ...
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Mars Hand Lens Imager
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is one of seventeen cameras on the ''Curiosity'' rover on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Overview The instrument is mounted on the rover's robotic arm. It is primarily used to acquire microscopic images of rock and soil, but it can also be used for other images. MAHLI can take true-color images at 1600×1200 pixels with a resolution as high as 14.5 micrometers per pixel. MAHLI has an 18.3 mm to 21.3 mm focal length and a 33.8- to 38.5-degree field of view. MAHLI has both white and ultraviolet LED illumination for imaging in darkness or fluorescence imaging. MAHLI also has mechanical focusing in a range from infinite to millimetre distances. This system can make some images with focus stacking processing. MAHLI can store either the raw images or do real-time lossless predictive or JPEG compression. Thcalibration target
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Aeolis Palus
Aeolis Palus is a plain between the northern wall of Gale crater and the northern foothills of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) on Mars. It is located at . The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the ''Curiosity'' rover on Aeolis Palus in August 2012. ''Curiosity'' spent two (Earth) years exploring the plain as it drove towards Aeolis Mons. The rover left the plain in September 2014 when it reached the mountain's foothills. Spacecraft exploration On August 5, 2012, at 10:32 p.m. PDT/mission time (August 6, 2012, at 5:32 UTC), mission control at JPL received a signal from the NASA ''Curiosity'' rover that it had successfully landed in "Yellowknife" ''Quad 51'' of ''Aeolis Palus''. The rover's mission is to explore the surface area of Gale Crater focusing first near its landing site on ''Aeolis Palus'' and then venturing into the nearby foothills of Aeolis Mons (unofficially, "Mount Sharp") to investigate its geological features and strata. On September 26, 2013, NASA sc ...
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Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The coordination of time and frequency transmissions around the world began on 1 January 1960. UTC was first officially adopted as CCIR Recommendation 374, ''Standard-Frequency and Time-Signal Emissions'', in 1963, but the official abbreviation of UTC and the official English name of Coordinated Universal Time (along with the French equivalent) were not adopted until 1967. The system has been adjusted several times, including a brief period during which the time-coordination radio signals broadcast both UTC and "Stepped Atomic Time (SAT)" before a new UTC was adopted in 1970 and implemented in 1972. This change also ...
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Space Exploration
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by uncrewed robotic space probes and human spaceflight. Space exploration, like its classical form astronomy, is one of the main sources for space science. While the observation of objects in space, known as astronomy, predates reliable recorded history, it was the development of large and relatively efficient rockets during the mid-twentieth century that allowed physical space exploration to become a reality. The world's first large-scale experimental rocket program was Opel-RAK under the leadership of Fritz von Opel and Max Valier during the late 1920s leading to the first crewed rocket cars and rocket planes, which paved the way for the Nazi era V2 program and US and Soviet activities from 1950 onwards. The Opel-RAK program and the spectacular pu ...
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Perseverance (rover)
''Perseverance'', nicknamed ''Percy'', is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of , ''Perseverance'' has been active on Mars for sols ( Earth days, or ) since its landing. Following the rover's arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing. ''Perseverance'' has a similar design to its predecessor rover, ''Curiosity'', although it was moderately upgraded. It carries seven primary payload instruments, nineteen cameras, and two microphones. The rover also carried the mini-helicopter '' Ingenuity'' to Mars, an experimental aircraft and technology testbed that made the first powered flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. As of December 22, 2022, it has made 37 successful flights ...
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Opportunity (rover)
''Opportunity'', also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. ''Opportunity'' was operational on Mars for sols (). Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, '' Spirit'' (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days), ''Spirit'' functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while ''Opportunity'' was able to stay operational for sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed ''Opportunity'' to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by (in Earth time). By June 10, 2018, wh ...
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Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a large impact feature. Days and seasons on Mars are comparable to those of Earth, as the planets have a similar rotation period ...
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Gale (crater)
Gale is a Impact crater, crater, and probable dry lake, at in the northwestern part of the Aeolis quadrangle on Mars. It is in diameter and estimated to be about 3.5–3.8 billion years old. The crater was named after Walter Frederick Gale, an amateur astronomer from Sydney, Australia, who observed Mars in the late 19th century. Aeolis Mons is a mountain in the center of Gale and rises high. Aeolis Palus is the plain between the northern wall of Gale and the northern foothills of Aeolis Mons. Peace Vallis, a nearby outflow channel, 'flows' down from the hills to the Aeolis Palus below and seems to have been carved by flowing Water on Mars, water. Several lines of evidence suggest that a lake existed inside Gale shortly after the formation of the crater. The NASA Mars rover Curiosity rover, ''Curiosity'', of the Mars Science Laboratory, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, landed in "Yellowknife" ''Quad 51'' of Aeolis Palus in Gale at 05:32 UTC August 6, 2012. NASA named th ...
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Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41
Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), previously Launch Complex 41 (LC-41), is an active launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. As of 2020, the site is used by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for Atlas V launches. Previously, it had been used by the USAF for Titan III and Titan IV launches. Atlas V After the last Titan launch, the complex was renovated to support the Atlas V. SLC-41 was the site of the first-ever Atlas V launch on 21 August 2002, lifting Hot Bird 6, a Eutelsat geostationary communications spacecraft built around a Spacebus 3000B3 bus. Atlas V rockets are assembled vertically on a mobile launcher platform in the Vertical Integration Facility, located to the south of the pad. The MLP is transported to the launch pad on rails about a day before launch. Modifications for supporting human spaceflight In September 2015, pad modifications began to support human spaceflight with the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. Modifications include the addition of a laun ...
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Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the station is the primary launch site for the Space Force's Eastern RangeCAST 1999, p. 1-12. with three launch pads currently active (Space Launch Complexes 37B, 40, and 41). The facility is south-southeast of NASA's Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, with the two linked by bridges and causeways. The Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Skid Strip provides a runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy and outsized payloads to the Cape. A number of American space exploration pioneers were launched from CCSFS, including the first U.S. Earth satellite (1958), first U.S. astronaut (1961), first U.S. astronaut in orbit (1962), first two-man U.S. spacecraft (1965), first U.S. unmanned lunar l ...
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Sample Analysis At Mars
Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a suite of instruments on the Mars Science Laboratory ''Curiosity'' rover. The SAM instrument suite will analyze organics and gases from both atmospheric and solid samples. It was developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Laboratoire des Atmosphères Milieux Observations Spatiales (LATMOS) associated to the Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA) (jointly operated by France's Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Parisian universities), and Honeybee Robotics, along with many additional external partners. Instruments The SAM suite consists of three instruments: #The quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) detects gases sampled from the atmosphere or those released from solid samples by heating. #The gas chromatograph (GC) is used to separate out individual gases from a complex mixture into molecular components. The resulting gas flow is analyzed in the mass spectrometer with a mass range of 2� ...
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