The Mars Science Laboratory Touchdown Test Facility

In the Touchdown Test Program for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, a facility was developed to use a full-scale rover vehicle and an overhead winch system to replicate the Skycrane landing event. A driving requirement for the testing facility was the need to support a load of 5,000 lb (2,268 kg) at a minimum height of 13 m. Few facilities at JPL qualify with enough height, leaving the Building 280 Static Test Tower as the logical choice. However, this facility is popular, so an additional requirement was that the MSL test facility be temporary, and be able to be disassembled in a matter of a week or two, be stored for a period of time, and then be reassembled again quickly for V&V (verification and validation) testing.