NASA Invites Social Media Fans To Mars Landing Event

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a 3-day NASA Social for 25 of its social media followers Aug. 3-5 at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. The NASA Social is scheduled to culminate in the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover at Mars' Gale crater. The landing is anticipated at approximately 1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6.

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The event will offer people who engage with NASA through Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks the opportunity to tour JPL, speak with scientists and engineers, participate in news conferences and, if all goes as planned, be at the media site when the first signal of the rover's landing is detected by JPL mission control. The event also will provide participants the opportunity to interact with fellow tweeps, space enthusiasts and members of NASA's social media team.

During the 2-year prime mission, Curiosity will investigate whether the selected area of Mars offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life or if evidence of it existed.

JPL has 23 spacecraft and 10 instruments conducting active missions of exploration of Earth, the solar system and the universe beyond. These ventures, including Voyager, Cassini and the Opportunity Mars rover, are enabled by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). Managed by JPL, the DSN is an international network of antenna complexes for communications between spacecraft and Earth-based teams that guide them. NASA Social guests will meet team members from some of these missions and tour DSN mission control.

NASA Social registration opens at noon EDT Wednesday, June 6, and closes at noon EDT Friday, June 8. NASA will randomly select 25 participants from online registrations.

For more information and rules pertaining to NASA Social registration, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/social

For information about connecting and collaborating with NASA, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect

For more information about JPL, visit:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

To follow the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission via Facebook and Twitter, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/MarsCuriosity

SOURCE NASA