That's how long it will take to land Curiosity on Mars late this Sunday.
It will be skimming on the top of the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour, and will need to brake down to a stop, in seven minutes.
The rover is headed for a two-year mission to study whether Mars ever had the elements needed for microbial life. Because of its weight, the 2,000-pound robot can't land the way previous spacecraft did.
Previous spacecraft basically surrounded themselves in airbags and bounced to a stop on the martian surface.
This time NASA is testing a brand new landing that involves gingerly setting down the rover similar to the way heavy-lift helicopters lower huge loads at the end of a cable.
"The degree of difficulty is above a 10," says Adam Steltzner, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is in charge of this mission.
American University space policy analyst Howard McCurdy says: "It would be a major technological step forward if it works. It's a big gamble."
So, basically, it's going to be really hard, and really awesome, if they don't fail miserably. And if they fail, they basically wasted $2.5 billion.
Actually, it wouldn't be a complete waste. As Gizmodo points out, Curiosity gathered some valuable data already, during its travel to Mars.
Until now, scientists were only able to guess about the types of radiation experienced on the way to Mars. This information is very important, especially if we're ever going to send humans to Mars (or maybe we'll go with dogs first again).
Curiosity gathered this data, so now scientists don't have to guess.
So even if Curiosity fails at landing, it wasn't a complete waste.
But I would still be pretty bummed.
A communication time delay between Mars and Earth (about 14 minutes) means Curiosity will have to nail the landing by itself, following the 500,000 lines of computer code that engineers uploaded to direct its every move.
The landing will be the culmination of eight years of planning, designing, building, testing, and launching on NASA's part.
After an 8 1/2-month, 352-million-mile journey, here's a step-by-step look at how Curiosity will land, from the Seattle Times:
- Ten minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity separates from the capsule that carried it to Mars.
- Turning its protective heat shield forward, it streaks through the atmosphere at 13,200 mph, slowing itself with a series of S-curves.
- Seven miles from the ground at 900 mph, Curiosity unfurls its enormous parachute.
- Next it sheds its heat shield and turns on radar to scope out the landing site. Now it's 5 miles from touchdown and closing in at 280 mph.
- A video camera aboard Curiosity starts to record the descent.
- A mile from landing, the parachute is jettisoned.
- Curiosity is still attached to a rocket-powered backpack, and those rockets are used to slow it to less than 2 mph.
- Twelve seconds before landing, nylon cables release and lower Curiosity. Once it senses six wheels on the ground, it cuts the cords. The hovering rocket-powered backpack flies out of the way, crashing some distance away.
Here's a video about the landing (It may be a little over-dramatic at times, but it's informative), followed by a more detailed video with William Shatner.
When late Sunday night, early Monday morning rolls around, you have a couple of options to actually watch the landing:
- If you're in New York City, you can watch the landing in Times Square on a huge LED television screen.
- NASA also has a directory of watching parties, and will be streaming live to NASA TV and Ustream starting at 9pm Pacific (12am Eastern; 11pm central).
- You can also follow along on Twitter and Facebook.
one way or another, our world will not be the same.”
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