NASA: Confident, Anxious Ahead of Mars Rover Landing

 The Curiosity rover is the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission.  The U.S. space agency is preparing for the rover to land on the Red Planet on Monday [August 6 at 5:31 UTC].  Curiosity has traveled some 566 million kilometers since it was launched in November.  But the most harrowing part of the journey to Mars is still ahead. 

NASA officials told reporters at a pre-landing news conference on Sunday that the spacecraft was functioning properly as it sped toward its target.  But Curiosity's most complicated maneuvers¹ are just ahead.

Adam Steltzner is the lead mechanical engineer for the rover's critical entry, descent and landing sequence. "It's a little anxiety provoking, but I will say that I slept better last night than I have slept in a couple of years because she's kind of on her own now.  And when I look back at the hard work that we've done, I believe that the team has done everything that we can to deserve success tonight.  Although, as we all know, we can never guarantee success," he said.

Curiosity will be traveling at about 20,000 kilometers per hour when it hits the thin Martian atmosphere.  It will have only seven minutes to use a parachute, rocket thrusters and a skycrane to reduce its speed and make a safe landing.

Throughout this period, the craft will function autonomously².  NASA engineers will not be able to witness the events in real time because it takes 14 minutes for radio signals to reach Earth from Mars.

NASA's Adam Steltzner says the scientists and engineers overseeing the project are "rationally confident, emotionally terrified" and prepared.  "As far as the amount of control that the team has during entry, descent and landing, it's identical to the control that anybody watching at home has.  We're all along for the ride," he said. 

Curiosity's hazard-avoidance cameras will take pictures shortly after touchdown.  NASA could receive the first low-resolution, black-and-white images within minutes or a few hours of landing. 

Doug McCuistion is the Director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.  He says the car-sized rover, which has 17 cameras, will soon provide color pictures. "In the days, years, weeks to come, there is going to be an enormous number of images, incredible images, color images, real color this time, too, so kind of like the human eye will see, which will be really exciting.  Those will come, and there will be plenty of those," he said.

But McCuistion stressed that there is no guarantee of a successful mission. "If we don't do it, and we're not successful, we'll pick ourselves up, we'll dust off and do it again.  The science is on the surface.  We need to keep going back, and that's the plan, but I think we're going to stick the landing," he said. 

The main goal of the mission is to see whether Mars ever had conditions that could have supported microbial life.  The nuclear-powered Curiosity is outfitted³ with instruments to investigate Martian geology, weather and radiation levels during the next two years.  

Curiosity would be the seventh NASA spacecraft to land on the Red Planet.

1 maneuvers   

n.策略，谋略，花招( maneuver的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He suspected at once that she had been spying upon his maneuvers. 他立刻猜想到，她已经侦察到他的行动。 来自辞典例句
• Maneuvers in Guizhou occupied the Reds for four months. 贵州境内的作战占了红军四个月的时间。 来自辞典例句

2 autonomously   

adv. 自律地，自治地

参考例句：

• To learn autonomously in the network environment is totally new to students. 基于网络环境下的自主学习对学生来说，是一种全新的学习方式。
• The QC-RS can operate autonomously or by remote control. QC-RS能实现自动操作或通过遥控来操作。

3 outfitted   

v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They outfitted for the long journey. 他们为远途旅行准备装束。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They outfitted him with artificial legs. 他们为他安了假腿。 来自辞典例句