Nasa may not hear rover's landing
06:45 Tue Jul 17, 2012
Taken from/By:
Report by: BBC News
Nasa might not be able to follow the progress of its big Mars rover all the way to the surface when it attempts to land on the planet on 6 August (GMT).
The Curiosity vehicle is aiming for a deep depression known as Gale Crater.
The US space agency will be tracking the descent with satellites, but its prime orbiter for the task may not now be in the correct place in the sky.
Engineers have been tackling a fault on the Odyssey satellite and it has yet to take up the best observational orbit.
Unless that is achieved in the next three weeks, Nasa will lose signal to the rover just as it is about to touch down.
« Back to Home« More World News
