NASA is pushing the boundaries of technology as it readies its next mission to Mars, loading up its fourth Mars Rover with nearly a dozen instruments and employing an innovative but risky landing procedure.


The $2.5-billion-dollar rover is more advanced than the Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity that roamed the Red Planet in past years.

Curiosity will house a fully fledged science laboratory that can perform real-time tests on the planet, making it the most sophisticated unmanned spacecraft ever built. It is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as any previous Mars rover.

Key to the trip will be a suite of instruments named Sample Analysis at Mars that will analyze samples of material collected and delivered by the rover's arm, plus atmospheric samples.


An X-ray diffraction and fluorescence instrument called CheMin will also examine samples gathered by the robotic arm. It is designed to identify and quantify the minerals in rocks and soils, and to measure bulk composition. A retractable arm will house instruments for sampling data from afar. Mounted on the arm, the Mars Hand Lens Imager will take extreme close-up pictures of rocks, soil and, if present, ice, revealing details smaller than the width of a human hair.



Power for all of these instruments will come from a radioisotope power source which will also provide heat to the rover.

Because of its weight and sheer size, NASA cannot use the airbag padded rolling landing used for previous flights. Curiosity's landing will use a different method, lowering the rover on tethers from a rocket-backpack "sky crane."

The craft will hit the Mars atmosphere traveling some 13,000 miles-per-hour. During the three minutes before touchdown, the spacecraft slows its descent with a parachute to roughly 1,000 MPH then uses retro rockets mounted around the rim of an upper stage. In the final seconds, the upper stage acts as a sky crane, lowering the upright rover on a tether to the surface.


While previous rovers have identified that water has indeed flowed on Mars, Curiosity will look for clues of organic compounds necessary for life.

But long-term preservation of organic compounds requires special conditions. Certain minerals are good at latching onto organic compounds and protecting them from oxidation.

Because of it, NASA chose the crater Gale to land the craft.


The five-ton mobile laboratory is slated to blast off onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket between Nov 25 and Dec.18, embarking on a nearly 9 month journey.

It's expected to arrive on Mars next summer.
