NASA – ‘Curiosity rover’ successfully landed on Mars today, for a two year mission to find out whether life existed in Mars and it also aims to look for the basic ingredients necessary for life, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur and oxygen.
Curiosity had sent three of its images just few minutes after its landing in Mars. “I can’t believe this. This is unbelievable,” said Allen Chen, the deputy leader of the rover’s descent and landing team, reports Reuters.
President Barack Obama tweeted his appreciation: “I congratulate and thank all the men and women of NASA who made this remarkable accomplishment a reality’’, reports The Associated Press.
Obama described the landing as “an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future’’, in a statement.
It is not just the U.S. who has reason to celebrate; there are some Indians involved in the mission who have played their part in the successful landing of ‘curiosity’ on Mars. Read to know about those outstanding talents-
Ravi Prakash is a NASA rock scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has helped in the process of entry, descent, and landing of NASA’s rover ‘Curiosity’.
The mission, which is called “seven minutes of terror’’ is quite risky and is filled with challenges and it also needs numerous events to occur successfully in a short time span, says Prakash.
Prakash told CBS2 and KCAL9 reporter Joy Benedict, “Curiosity is the largest thing we’ve ever landed on Mars — it’s a beast!”
Praksh has been part of this ambitious project over the last five years and he recalls, “Sometimes I wake up calm and sometimes I wake up and I’m really nervous.”
Prakash, who joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the year 2005 has been working at the Mars Science Laboratory ever since.
Prakash holds a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.S. in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
