LOS ANGELES — A NASA spacecraft hurtling toward Mars prepared to fire its thrusters Wednesday to put itself on course for an August landing.
Engineers closely tracked the 1-ton rover nicknamed Curiosity, which has been cruising along since rocketing from Earth in November.
The firing of its eight thruster engines is the most important task Curiosity will perform during its 352- million-mile flight to the red planet.
“Just because this is a well-traveled road to Mars given the number of trips we’ve made, I’m very careful to not let that experience cause us to be complacent,” said Arthur Amador of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $2.5 billion mission.
At the time of the course correction, Curiosity will have racked up 80 million miles and will be traveling at 10,200 mph relative to the Earth.
If Curiosity did not tweak its position, it will miss Mars altogether. Curiosity, whose formal name is the Mars Science Laboratory, is aiming for a 96-mile-wide crater near the Martian equator that boasts a towering mountain in the center. The six-wheel, nuclear-powered rover will examine whether the area once had conditions capable of supporting microbial life. The Associated Press
