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"NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to
by gallamine 15y ago
"NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.
Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011."
I can't imagine how agonizing that decision to delay the launch must have been. "Do we work our asses off to try and meet the launch, and risk 1.5 billion usd, or wait two extra years?" Managers nightmare!
- mturmon 15y agoThey had been working 24 hour shifts for weeks to make the prior deadline. The delay was mainly due to a problem with the reliability of the mechanical actuators used by the robot. This happens, but it was an embarrassment to all concerned. I just found a good link to the story: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1319/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1319/1 The amount of planning and risk management for large projects like this is amazing. I remember seeing the chart of subsystem deliverables and dependencies for a medium-size instrument (~100M$, far smaller than MSL), printed out from a large-format printer, tacked to a hallway wall. It was about 20 feet long by 4 feet high, printed just large enough to read.