Rover’s landing launches research for UH scientist

For someone with such an immense amount of work ahead of him, University of Hawaii geologist Scott Rowland could hardly have been happier Sunday night as he and a room full of space buffs witnessed via the Internet the successful landing of the NASA rover Curiosity on the surface of Mars.

Rowland, one of several geologists selected to be part of an elite camera team that will help to analyze data received from the rover, watched the feed from a classroom at the university’s Pacific Ocean Science and Technology building. Joining him were Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology Director Peter Mouginis-Mark and about 20 faculty, students and community members, including Rowland’s parents and son.

"I didn’t realize that we’d be able to watch it in almost real time," said Rowland. "To have the ability to follow each step with real-time play-by-play like that was spectacular."

While NASA has previously landed three other rovers on the red planet, Curiosity is by far the most sophisticated. The nuclear-powered, car-size vehicle is expected to be able to collect and transmit an unprecedented volume and quality of data on the geology and climate of the planet, information that could prove vital to a future manned mission. If all goes well, it may even uncover long-sought-after signs of former bacterial life on the planet.

The $2.5 billion mission will last nearly two years.

The UH audience watched intently as video of the command center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., streamed live, with murmers of excitement growing louder as each step of the intricate, highly suspenseful landing — a process in which the spacecraft changed forms five times in a seven-minute span — was successfully executed. And when the JPL team celebrated as the rover finally set down on Gale Crater at 7:32 p.m., the room broke out into sympathetic applause.

"It was really fun," declared Rowland’s 7-year-old son, Kai. "I thought my dad did a good job."

In fact, Rowland’s real work begins Wednesday when he leaves for Pasadena. During the next three months, he and the rest of the camera team will establish their day-to-day procedures for analyzing the information Curiosity transmits. The work will continue, remotely, over the next few years.

Rowland, a specialist in volcanology, has been on the team since 2004. He said last night’s landing was particularly nerve-wracking because of the potentially catastrophic effect a botched landing would have had not just on the current mission, but on future explorations.

"There might not have been another one for 10 years," he said.

Instead, Rowland and his colleagues now have to opportunity to uncover millions of years of geological history of Mars and, perhaps, discover evidence of life on another planet.