Seite in DeutschMars Science Laboratory with Rover Curiosity on the way to Mars
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Mission time line
T = 00m00s
Launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida on November 26, 2011 at 15:02 UTC.
T + 01m52s
Jettison of the four solid rocket boosters (SRB).
T + 03m25s
The nose cone protecting the MSL during launch opens and falls away. The frist rocket stage will stop and cut off. It will drop in the Atlantic Ocean later.
T + 04m38s
The second rocket stage will start for the first time for a duration of 7 minutes. After that the Atlas rocket will be in an elliptical parking orbit with an altitude of 165x324km and is moving in this way for a short time around the globe.
T + 33m
Second ignition of the second rocket stage for an other duration of 8 minutes. The rocket is leaving the Earth orbit on the right point in direction to Mars. It will reach an escape velocity of more than 40.320 kilometers per hour.
T + 44m
The Mars Rover separates from the launch rocket and is moving to the Mars alone now. The second rocket stage makes a last small change in the flight path to surely miss the planet Mars and to avoid to hit the MSL later.
06. August 2012
Arrival and landing on the Mars surface.
CCD images and measurements
On November 27, 2011 I from 00:22 to 03:06 UTC I was able to take more than 850 CCD images from the Mars Science Laboratory to make position measurements later. For this I used a table with theoretical positions calculated by the JPL Horizons System. This calculations were available 49 minutes after the launch when all important maneuvers had sucessful finished.
MSL ephemerides calculated for Nonndorf - C47 from the JPL Horizons System
(2011/11/26 - 2011/11/29)
From the CCD images over a time span of 164 minutes I could measure 27 positions of the MSL and report them to the Minor Planet Center. Sadly the sky was not really clear this night and this resulted mostly in wided star images on the CCD sensor. The seeing too was far below the average in this night. In this way the reachable quality of the images was not very good.
The first measured positions from Nonndorf C47 were time stamped with November 27, 2011 at 00:23:30 UTC. For November 28th and 30th, 2011 another positions were reported to the Minor Planet Center from the Great Shefford Observatory J95 in England and from the Catalina Sky Survey 703 in Arizona.
Mars Science Laboratory on 2011/11/27 at 01:40:14 UTC - Astrometric image
MSL positions measured in Nonndorf C47
COD C47 CON G. Dangl, Nonndorf 12, 3830, Austria [gerhard@dangl.at] OBS G. Dangl MEA G. Dangl TEL 0.25-m f/4.72 reflector + CCD ACK MPCReport file updated 2011.11.29 14:49:10 AC2 gerhard@dangl.at NET UCAC-3 MSL C2011 11 27.01632 08 04 05.54 -04 45 53.3 14.5 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.02019 08 04 08.44 -04 42 45.7 14.7 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.02465 08 04 11.56 -04 39 13.1 14.5 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.03067 08 04 15.39 -04 34 32.1 14.8 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.03512 08 04 18.01 -04 31 08.3 14.6 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.03844 08 04 19.83 -04 28 39.2 14.8 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.04203 08 04 21.72 -04 26 00.8 14.9 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.04550 08 04 23.46 -04 23 28.9 14.9 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.04882 08 04 24.98 -04 21 05.3 15.1 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.05244 08 04 26.57 -04 18 31.5 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.06351 08 04 30.89 -04 10 54.2 14.8 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.06642 08 04 31.88 -04 08 57.3 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.06961 08 04 32.94 -04 06 49.7 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.07376 08 04 34.25 -04 04 05.9 14.9 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.07695 08 04 35.20 -04 02 02.8 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.08041 08 04 36.21 -03 59 51.6 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.08388 08 04 37.12 -03 57 39.9 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.08762 08 04 38.11 -03 55 19.6 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.09665 08 04 40.24 -03 49 50.5 14.9 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.10102 08 04 41.21 -03 47 14.4 15.1 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.10442 08 04 41.99 -03 45 15.0 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.10789 08 04 42.69 -03 43 14.8 15.1 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.11144 08 04 43.44 -03 41 12.9 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.11483 08 04 44.13 -03 39 18.2 15.2 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.11822 08 04 44.84 -03 37 24.6 15.0 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.12186 08 04 45.54 -03 35 24.1 14.9 V C47 MSL C2011 11 27.12525 08 04 46.23 -03 33 32.2 15.1 V C47 ----- end -----Astrometry realized with Astrometrica from Herbert Raab.
| Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity 10 hours and 30 minutes after launch |
 FOV 25.7 x 19.2 arcmin, Diameter of Curiosity = 4.5 meters, Brightness about +15mag |
| Click here or on the image starts the video (MPEG4 - 4.81MB) |
MSL flight path to Mars 2011/11/26 - 2012/08/06
Diagram created with EasySky from Matthias Busch
MSL ephemerides calculated for Nonndorf - C47 from the JPL Horizons System
(2011/11/26 - 2012/08/06)
MSL cartesian state vector table calculated from the JPL Horizons System
(2011/11/26 - 2012/08/06)
More info about the MSL mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
January 08, 2012 |
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