MSL Undergoes Final Launch Preparations

NASA announces that experts managing the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity are now nearing the end of their preparations to launch the Mini Cooper-sized explorations robot to the Red Planet this November.

A launch window for the MSL opens on November 25 and lasts through December 18. If the agency is unable to launch the rover in this time frame, then it will have to wait for more than a year until it gets another chance.

Deploying Curiosity on Mars is one of the most technologically-challenging projects that NASA has been engaged in over the past few years. Due to its size, and the fact that it weight almost a ton, the machine cannot land on the Red Planet using the conventional airbag system.

As such, it will literally be laid down on the surface via the Sky Crane system, which was developed specifically for this mission. Experts are worried about this to some extent, seeing how it has never been tested before.

However, that is not deterring NASA from sticking with is current launch plan. Starting today, August 13, engineering teams at the agency's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, will being the complex task of folding the rover in on itself, setting it in its flight configuration.

After this stage is complete, the machine will be integrated with its heat shield, which is the largest ever made for such a mission. The entire ensemble will then be place atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 delivery system at a later date.

“We're going to start buttoning up the hatches here,” NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) robotics engineer Torsten Zorn told reporters recently. The JPL, in Pasadena, California, is managing the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, at the agency's Headquarters, in Washington DC.

If the rover is launched on time, then it will reach the Red Planet around August 2012. That moment will mark the next time when rover will be deployed in its unfolded configuration. Until then, however, the mission needs to pass through a number of dangerous phases, Space reports.

The radioisotope thermoelectric generator – Curiosity's nuclear power source – will only be installed on the rover a few days after launch, so as to prevent any type of contamination or malfunction to the spacecraft, rocket or related systems before that time.

MSL's main mission is scheduled to last for about a Martian year, the equivalent of 1.9 Earth years, or about 687 days. If the performances of Mars Exploration Rover (MER) rovers Spirit and Opportunity are any indication, the MSL will probably last a lot longer.

The spacecraft will land in Gale Crate, a massive landscape feature on Mars that contains a high mountain at its core. The rover will climb at least a portion of this mountain, analyzing sediment layers, and attempting to determine whether liquid water and primitive life were or are possible on Mars.