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WASHINGTON, June 23 (Xinhua) -- NASA's next Mars rover has completed the journey from its California birthplace to Florida in preparation for launch this fall, the U.S. space agency said Thursday in a statement.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, also known as Curiosity, arrived Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center aboard an Air Force C-17 transport plane. It was accompanied by the rocket-powered descent stage that will fly the rover during the final moments before landing on Mars.
The rover's aeroshell -- the protective covering for the trip to the Red Planet -- and the cruise stage, which will guide it to Mars, arrived at Kennedy last month. The mission is targeted to launch from Cape1 Canaveral Air Force Station between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18. The car-size rover will land on Mars in August 2012.
The rover and other spacecraft components2 will undergo more testing before mission staff stack them and fuel the onboard propulsion systems. Curiosity should be enclosed in its aeroshell for the final time in September and delivered to Kennedy's Launch Complex 41 in early November for integration3 with a United Launch Alliance Atlas4 V rocket.
Curiosity is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as any previous Mars rover. Its 10 science instruments include two for ingesting and analyzing5 samples of powdered rock delivered by the rover's robotic arm. During a prime mission lasting6 one Martian year -- nearly two Earth years -- researchers will use the rover's tools to study whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)
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1 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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2 components | |
(机器、设备等的)构成要素,零件,成分; 成分( component的名词复数 ); [物理化学]组分; [数学]分量; (混合物的)组成部分 | |
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3 integration | |
n.一体化,联合,结合 | |
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4 atlas | |
n.地图册,图表集 | |
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5 analyzing | |
v.分析;分析( analyze的现在分词 );分解;解释;对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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6 lasting | |
adj.永久的,永恒的;vbl.持续,维持 | |
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