Yesterday, hubby and I were fortunate to have the opportunity to watch the landing of the Mars Curiosity rover on Mars at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) at Tidbinbilla, with hundreds of fellow space geeks. It was a nail-biting landing sequence – I was nervous as anything as we watched/heard the landing sequence, but oh boy did I feel proud and happy when we heard the good news (there was also a few happy tears around the room, or was that Mars dust?).
I was proud to witness such an extraordinary event and to be able to experience it at the CDSCC. The atmosphere was electrifying and I can only imagine what it was like at NASA’s Mission Control!
The day has been well covered across the news but also by some of my fellow space lovers, including Curiosity puts wheels on Mars via Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex by @codenix and Watching history unfold: Viewing the Curiosity landing from a NASA facility! by @crystalsinger.
Here are some of the photos I captured during the day.
The rest of the photos are on my flickr stream. Keep an eye out for Martin Ollman’s amazing photos.
A big thank you to Glen Nagle (@astro0_umsf), Vanessa Hill (@nessyhill), CSIRO and Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (@CanberraDSN) for hosting the landing party. It made this event extra special by being able to celebrate it with other passionate space lovers and by being part of the experience.
Thanks Ruth. It really was a great day. A wonderful day for science. An amazing team at JPL and an incredible spacecraft on Mars.
The biggest thanks of the day goes to my brilliant staff, Korinne McDonnell (she’s a Dr. btw) and Leanne George (super talented and good scary). They work tirelessly behind the scenes, keep me sane and allow me to be the crazy spaceman.
UjVM0R A big thank you for your blog post.Much thanks again.
XpPujf Thanks a lot for the post. Will read on…