Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 3rd.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 28 minutes, setting at 9:30.   The moon, at full today, will rise at 9:21 this evening.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:03.

At 1:31 on the morning of August 6th our time the Curiosity Rover will land on Mars.  The entry, descent and landing of the rover will take just 7 minutes from first encountering the martian atmosphere.  The planning to land this nearly one ton lander on Mars was enormous.  There’s a heat shield to initially slow the spacecraft, then there is a parachute to slow it more.  It will be on the parachute for a maximum of 90 seconds.  Then 8 rockets will slow the rover more.  These are on the descent stage with the rover tucked underneath.  At the proper altitude the descent stage will lower the rover to the ground by cable, then fly off to crash some distance away.  This isn’t the half of it.  Check out the planetary dot org blog  section for more details.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

How Curiosity Will Land – Part 1

How Curiosity Will Land – Part 2

Youtube video:  “Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror”