Curiosity takes flight.

After eight-and-a-half-months of hard work, the $2.5 billion Mars Rover took off from the Kennedy space center, nested inside an Atlas 5 rocket. It is supposed to cover a 352-million-mile voyage to the Red Planet. The Rover has been named “Curiosity” and it is supposed to spend at least two years in the planet looking for organic compounds and any sign of life (both past and present) in the planet’s layered terrain at the heart of 100 mile wide crater. This mission promises to change the human-kind’s understanding about the planet, its history and find out if the planet has or had any hospitable environment. The entire team is thrilled by the mission that seems to be all set for the landing.



The car sized rover is said to have begun a new era of exploration in mars. It is set to land in the Gale crater from where it will keep relaying loads of information and images. The scientists seem ecstatic and are waiting for the arrival of data, which not going to happen before the coming summer) to be precise, on August 5[SUP]th[/SUP], if all goes well) . The mission got under way on time at 10:02 a.m. ET, when the rocket started slowly and moved into space from the launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is equipped with a nuclear power back, robotic arm, a suite of sophisticated instruments, a mobile laboratory.
The Atlas Rocket is equipped with four solid-fuel strap-on boosters for additional power. With just under 1 minute 55 seconds the strap on boosters were jettisoned and it moved on powered by its Russian-built RD-180 first-stage engine. Then after some more time (4 and a half minutes from the take off) first stage dropped away. Then the hydrogen-fueled RL10 engine at the base of 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] stage came to life and propelled the craft forward. The team announced that all is going as per the plan and there is almost no deviation in the plan so far. They have started receiving the navigation data and two way communications have been established. As the craft goes about its 8 and a half month journey, the scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be testing its equipments, make changes to its trajectory, tweak its control software. All arrangements have been made for the landing process. So if all goes well we can expect some good news and some awesome data aroung august first week.