Anyone else planning to watch the landing? I followed the Spirit & Opportunity landings, and also watched the live video streams for the Phoenix lander. I've only just discovered that Curiosity is due to touch down on Monday morning at 0531 GMT (or 0631 UK time (GMT+1)), which means that I have the choice between a *really* late night, or getting up at around 0500/0530. This is assuming that I can get the time off work at such short notice!
That's only half an hour earlier than I usually get up, so I will be up to watch this event. Still, it will undoubtedly be shown many times, and it will probably hit youtube within 5 minutes of the broadcast being finished...
I found last night that there will be a live stream on Google+ apparently but I'd like a better option if anyone knows of one.
As Journeyer mentions, the full videos will doubtless be available all over the place: NASA, space.com and Universe Today will probably be good places to look. Also YouTube of course, but that'll probably be a bit of a minefield. It'll be broadcast on NASA's Ustream channel (in HD, with or without commentary); see here for full details of schedule, links, etc. The main page for the Mars Science Lab mission is here.
There was a pretty good Horizon on at the beginning of the week detailing the mission and the scientists & engineers that put it all together. Worth a look if you can find it on iPlayer. The only thing they didn't really explain was the reasoning behind the sky crane approach. Yes, they mentioned that it's all based on sound, reasoned engineering - but skiped why it was neccessary. It was left up to me to explain to MrsGoo why they weren't using the airbags this time round. And she was less than impressed with the lead engineer. She reckoned he looked too much like a rock star. Of course I then had to explain the whole "I bring a scientist, you bring a rock star" quote to her as well. 7 Minutes of Terror - EDL
Cool, I'll dig out that Horizon programme; if it was earlier this week, it should still be on the iPlayer (thank god they have an iPlayer interface on the Xbox now!). Programmes are usually available for 1 week; sometimes it's longer for special events/programmes, but never sooner. It is certainly an unusual landing system. I understand the reasoning behind it and the difficulties in landing this particular rover - it's a massive piece of kit! - but it seems awfully risky. A parachute and airbag landing already has a very large number of potential failure points, but the extra complexity involved with the "skycrane" arrangment boggles the mind. There's nothing routine about landing on Mars, but airbags almost seem routine compared to this. It's one of the main reasons I want to watch the stream: the landing procedure seems like pure science fiction, but the mission is reality and it will actually be happening on a planet in our solar system within my lifetime. Sending complex semi-autonomous machines such as this (or even Spirit & Opportunity) to another planet is already a massive achievement, but pulling off this landing will be the icing on the cake. I've got Monday off work now, so methinks I'll be having an early night on Sunday!
I have to agree, if this is pulled off smoothly it's a massive leap forward. I still have some trepidation, it's going to be a VERY uncomfortable 7 minutes for us watching, imagine what they'll be feeling in mission control. It has to be speculated on though, if we can get a landing procedure such as this working cleanly it might rekindle the desire to have men landing on other surfaces, even if it's just the moon again. (wow, that statement sounds ridiculous 'just' the moon)
I think people take the achievements of the last fifty/sixty years for granted. Visiting Bletchley Park really made me appreciate just how far we've come. Well, that and the fact that we're landing a robotic probe on another planet using a manoeuvre that's almost straight out of Star Trek!
She's bang on course, according to the latest reports: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19107577 So much so, they may not need the final course correction before Martian entry.
Let's hope that it's a good omen for the landing. I watched that Horizon documentary yesterday and it was quite good, but I can't help feeling that it very much followed the BBC pattern of "dumbing down" science content. Though I guess it's probably targetted at a different audience than people like me, who will be getting up at 4am to watch NASA's live streams... On the subject of live streams, there's also a dashboard application for the Xbox (Live Event Viewer) which will be streaming the landing. I'll stick to the NASA feeds though, personally... I've used them before for shuttle/rocket launches, and I know the quality and reliability.
NASA Ustream One link I can't provide the necessary caffeine though I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been any news of it showing on Sky News, they have shown launches of almost everything for the last 10 years or so.
All the info is on Nasa's site: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120730.html The televised/streamed events are due to start at 2030PDT on August 5th. PDT is GMT -7, so that's 0330GMT on August 6th (or 0430BST, for those in the UK). They'll be streamed on NASA TV, as well as NASA's Ustream channels (links to both are in the above page).
I decided I'd watch this live today. As a Robotics student, it should have more interest in this kind of thing. And as for the Sky Crane vs Air Bag discussion, the air bags just don't work. They've killed more project than I care to list. There's no control with them, so all you need is a slight tear and its dead. With a active stabilised system the chances for success are much higher. You can build in more fail safes at a lower cost (money, weight, ect). I love this as it's one of the first major landings where robots are in control, it'll highlight how good robotic systems are. We are in the future guys and gals
Yup. That's when it's due to actually touch down, the coverage from Mission Control will be starting at about 4:30am.
