Peter Theisinger, NASA: Rover Begins Journey to Mars

November 28, 2011

The U.S. space agency has launched the newest of its Mars rovers on a two-year mission to find places where life may have existed on the red planet. NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, took off Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida on an unmanned rocket.

"The launch vehicle has given us a great injection into our trajectory, and we're on our way to Mars," said MSL Project Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "The spacecraft is in communication, thermally stable and power positive."

The Atlas V initially lofted the spacecraft into Earth orbit and then, with a second burst from the vehicle's upper stage, pushed it out of Earth orbit into a 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) journey to Mars.

"Our first trajectory correction maneuver will be in about two weeks," Theisinger said. "We'll do instrument checkouts in the next several weeks and continue with thorough preparations for the landing on Mars and operations on the surface."

The size of a car, the rover has 17 cameras, a robotic arm, a laser, and a drill to break through the planet's rock. The rover is expected to reach Mars in August. The intended landing site is a 150-kilometer-wide depression called Gale Crater, named for Australian astronomer Walter Gale.

The crater's geological features include many places where scientists believe water may have once flowed, as well as a high, broad mountain that mission managers say will be a main focus. The scientists have said the rover's mission will help reveal secrets of Mars' environmental history.

The NASA scientists say the rover's instruments will be used to study whether the landing region had favorable conditions for supporting microbial life. They say Curiosity will not be on a life-detection mission and will not be searching for fossils.

The six-wheeled Curiosity is the largest of the rovers NASA has sent to Mars. The 900-kilogram rover is about two meters tall and two meters long and wide. It is about twice the size of previous rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

"We are very excited about sending the world's most advanced scientific laboratory to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "MSL will tell us critical things we need to know about Mars, and while it advances science, we'll be working on the capabilities for a human mission to the Red Planet and to other destinations where we've never been."