By Kalwinder Kaur
A media teleconference will be conducted by NASA on Friday, Aug. 17, at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Through this teleconference, status update will be delivered regarding Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California-based mission controllers are investigating Curiosity's subsystems and ten instruments. Curiosity is at the launching period of a two-year mission to check the condition to be favorable or not for the thriving of microbes and for preserving clues within the rocks in past potential life.
Members of the mission team are "living" on Mars time. A Martian day extends 40 minutes more than an Earth day. The team members begin their shift late by 40 minutes. The teleconference and other Curiosity media events will be scheduled based on their availability.
Curiosity has been presented to its target area on Mars by the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft at 10:31:45 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5. It involves the 13.8 minutes required for determining touchdown to be broadcasted to Earth at the speed of light.
The mission is directed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was engineered, created and assembled at Caltech’s division, JPL.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/