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Getting Ready for Landing

The Mars Science Laboratory mission team prepares for entry, descent and landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, Calif., as Curiosity is hours from landing.

August 05, 2012

The Mars Science Laboratory mission team prepares for entry, descent and landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, Calif., as Curiosity is hours from landing.

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NASA/JPL-Caltech

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The 70m antenna at Goldstone, California against the background of the Mojave desert.
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The 70m antenna at Goldstone, California against the background of the Mojave desert.
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As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is the ellipse marked on this image, about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide (20 kilometers...
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As of June 2012, the target landing area for Curiosity, the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is the ellipse marked on this image, about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide (20 kilometers by 7 kilometers).
Landing Target for Mars Rover Curiosity, in Stereo
The shape of the tip of the bit in the drill of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is apparent in this view recorded by the remote micro-imager in the rover's Chemistry and Camera instrument during the 17...
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The shape of the tip of the bit in the drill of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is apparent in this view recorded by the remote micro-imager in the rover's Chemistry and Camera instrument during the 172nd Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Jan. 29, 2012).
Drill Bit Tip on Mars Rover Curiosity, Side View
With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready for launch at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canavera...
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With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready for launch at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
MSL Rocket Stands Ready For Launch
This graphic tracks the maximum relative humidity and the temperature at which that maximum occurred each Martian day, or sol, for about one-fourth of a Martian year, as measured by the Remote Envi...
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This graphic tracks the maximum relative humidity and the temperature at which that maximum occurred each Martian day, or sol, for about one-fourth of a Martian year, as measured by the Remote Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.
Humidity in Gale Crater: Scant and Variable
The top of the butte in this Sept. 1, 2016, scene from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover stands about 16 feet above the rover and about 82 feet east-southeast of the rover. T...
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The top of the butte in this Sept. 1, 2016, scene from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover stands about 16 feet above the rover and about 82 feet east-southeast of the rover. The site is in the "Murray Buttes" area of lower Mount Sharp, and this particular butte is called "M9a."
Butte 'M9a' in 'Murray Buttes' on Mars
This picture shows a lab demonstration of the measurement chamber inside the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an instrument that is part of the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation on NASA's Curiosity ...
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This picture shows a lab demonstration of the measurement chamber inside the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an instrument that is part of the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation on NASA's Curiosity rover.
Shooting Lasers
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this 360-degree panorama at a drill site nicknamed “Avanavero” on June 20, 2022, the 3,509th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In its decade on the Red Planet, t...
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Panorama is made up of 127 individual images taken on June 20, 2022 by NASA'S Curiosity Mars rover.
Curiosity's 360-Degree Panorama of 'Avanavero' Drill Site
Open Parachute During Tests for Mars Science Laboratory
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Open Parachute During Tests for Mars Science Laboratory
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This 360-degree panorama shows the "Marias Pass" area, at center, and part of the slope that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover climbed to get there, at right.
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This 360-degree panorama shows the "Marias Pass" area, at center, and part of the slope that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover climbed to get there, at right.
Full-Circle View Near 'Marias Pass' on Mars
The highest concentration of boron measured on Mars, as of late 2016, is in this mineral vein examined with the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover on Aug, 25, 2016. Orange bars indicate b...
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The highest concentration of boron measured on Mars, as of late 2016, is in this mineral vein examined with the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover on Aug, 25, 2016. Orange bars indicate boron content at points in the calcium sulfate vein. The context image is from Curiosity's Mastcam.
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Satellite news trucks crowd the parking lots at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Aug. 5, 2012, in preparation for the Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars.
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Satellite news trucks crowd the parking lots at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Aug. 5, 2012, in preparation for the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars.
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This view of grains from a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Ore., was taken by a testing twin of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.
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This view of grains from a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Ore., was taken by a testing twin of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.
Test Image of Earth Sand by Mars Camera
Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, became the project scientist for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project in January 2015.
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Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, became the project scientist for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project in January 2015.
Ashwin Vasavada
This false-color engineering drawing shows the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device, attached to the turret at the end of the robotic arm on NASA's Curiosity Ma...
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This false-color engineering drawing shows the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device, attached to the turret at the end of the robotic arm on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.
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This set of images illustrates how the science filters of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity can be used to investigate aspects of the composition and mineralogy of materials ...
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Drill Hole Image and Spectra Acquired by Mastcam
Preparations are under way to enclose NASA's Mars Science Laboratory in an Atlas V rocket payload fairing in this photograph from inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy S...
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Preparations are under way to enclose NASA's Mars Science Laboratory in an Atlas V rocket payload fairing in this photograph from inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Mars Science Laboratory and Its Payload Fairing
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of a rock called "Et-Then" during the mission's 82nd sol, or Martian day (Oct. 29, 2012.)
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The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of a rock called "Et-Then" during the mission's 82nd sol, or Martian day (Oct. 29, 2012.)
Rock 'Et-Then' Near Curiosity, Sol 82
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This sequence of images shows a dust-carrying whirlwind, called a dust devil, on lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, as viewed by NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover during the summer afternoon of the rover's 1,613rd Martian day, or sol (Feb. 18, 2017).
Swirling Dust in Gale Crater, Mars, Sol 1613
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover documented itself in the context of its work site, an area called "Rocknest Wind Drift," on the 84th Martian day, or sol, of its mission (Oct. 31, 2012).
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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover documented itself in the context of its work site, an area called "Rocknest Wind Drift," on the 84th Martian day, or sol, of its mission (Oct. 31, 2012).
Curiosity's 'Rocknest' Workplace
By monitoring weather through two Martian years since landing in Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has documented seasonal patterns in variables such as temperature, water-vapor content and ...
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This image is from a series of test images to calibrate the 34-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. It was taken on Aug. 23, 2012 and looks south-southwest from the rover's landing site.
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Focusing the 34-millimeter Mastcam
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This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a sandstone slab on which the rover team has selected a target, "Windjana," for close-up examination.
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This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a sandstone slab on which the rover team has selected a target, "Windjana," for close-up examination.
Curiosity Mars Rover Beside Sandstone Target 'Windjana'

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