At end of today’s team meeting, we watched a short video on the upcoming Curiosity robotic rover landing on Mars called “Challenges of Getting to Mars: Zero Margin of Error” available on YouTube. We discussed the engineering challenges, the meaning of zero margin of error and its ramifications. The pictures of Curiosity on JPL’s web site show what looks to be the most sophisticated real robot we have seen.
Curiosity is scheduled to land on Mars on August 6th, 2012 at 12:30am CDT. Coverage of the event is planned on the NASA JPL channel. Mark your calendar and set an alarm.