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Blast Off! Rover heads to Mars
NASA has launched the world's biggest robotic explorer yet into space.
The agency's latest Mars rover – a six-wheeled, one-armed robot – took off Saturday morning from a launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
It was up to an unmanned Atlas V rocket to do the heavy lifting and launch the rover on an eight-and-a-half month voyage to the Red Planet.
"I HAVE LIFTOFF!" read a message posted to the explorer's Twitter account as the actual rover hurtled into the sky.
The rover, named Curiosity, is equipped with a mobile laboratory which will come in handy during its mission sampling soil and rocks on Mars.
"It is by far the most sophisticated vehicle we have ever sent to Mars," Paul Delaney, a York University astronomy professor, told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
Curiosity is tasked with scouring the Red Planet for evidence of microbial life, a quest that costs roughly USD$2.5 billion.
Part of the reason the cost is so steep, said Delaney, is because the project has run over its scheduled timeline.
"If you're going to make that kind of investment in trying to understand Mars, you want it to work properly," said Delaney.
"NASA pushed the timeline to make sure they could prepare the vehicle as thoroughly and as completely as they possibly could."
Earlier Saturday morning, NASA had reported some concern over cloudy weather conditions. But those concerns were quelled moments later.
"The forecasters declared conditions are now "GO" for launch after the clouds over the launch site scattered enough to allow a launch," a representative from NASA's Kennedy Space Center wrote in a message posted to Twitter.
Curiosity is expected to land in Gale Crater, a 154-kilometre-diameter area on the Red Planet.
With files from The Associated Press
http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20111126...nch-111126.html
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