Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


A Landing On Mars
<< Yesterday 4.07.1997 Tomorrow >>
A Landing On Mars
Credit & Copyright: IMP Team, JPL, NASA
Explanation: Today, July 4th, at about 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft will land on Mars. Ninety minutes before reaching the surface Pathfinder will begin a flurry of activity. The robot spacecraft is scheduled to vent cooling fluid, jettison its cruise stage, decelerate at 20 gees on atmospheric entry, deploy a 24 foot parachute, jettison its heat shield, slide down a 60 foot bridle, fire solid fuel braking rockets, deploy a cocoon of airbags, separate from the bridle, impact the martian surface, bounce a few times (traveling about 300 - 600 feet between bounces), settle on the surface, deflate the airbags, right itself, deploy its landing petals, and resume communication with planet Earth, all under the autonomous control of the onboard computer. If all goes well, at about 4:30 PM PDT the Pathfinder's camera "IMP" will spring into action recording frame by frame a panoramic view of the surface. Dubbed "Mission Success" the mosaic above is a laboratory simulation of the planned first image sequence to be downlinked from the surface of Mars.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < July 1997  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su

123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031


Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: Mars - landing
Publications with words: Mars - landing
See also:
All publications on this topic >>