# Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission: NASA's Curiosity rover lands on Mars, 6th August 2012



## editor (Apr 15, 2011)

The video is amazing!



> Because of the spacecraft's increased size, allowing it to bounce-land onto Mars' surface with the aid of airbags -- the technology* usually used by landing rovers -- just won't do. So instead Nasa has developed a sky crane -- a flying vehicle that can lower the rover gently -- to ensure a soft landing technique as Curiosity is lowered to the surface.
> 
> The sky crane will work with parachutes to land the rover during the last part of its journey. As the video shows, once the parachute has slowed the rover's descent, the heatshield, which protects Curiosity when it enters Mars' atmosphere, falls from the underside of the craft. Next a "descent stage" will also detach and rise up from Curiosity's upper protective shell and slow the rover's descent using four steerable engines which also protect against horizontal winds. Once the rover is nearing zero velocity, the descent stage will release it using an "umbilical cord" to lower it to the ground. While Curiosity is being lowered, its front mobility system will be readied so it can rove away as soon as it lands. Once computers on the descent stage sense a succesful landing, it cuts the bridle connecting it to the rover and promptly flies off to crash-land elsewhere on the planet.
> 
> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-04/11/nasas-new-mars-rover


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## Crispy (Apr 15, 2011)

It's an incredible plan. So many possible points of failure! This rover will kick lots of arse. Being nuclear powered and so much bigger than the current rovers, it will cover loads more ground and do much more science. Can't wait!


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## editor (Apr 15, 2011)

It seems _incredibly_ complex, but it if makes it - woohoo!


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## weltweit (Apr 15, 2011)

editor said:


> It seems _incredibly_ complex, but it if makes it - woohoo!


 
It does seem very complicated.


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## editor (Nov 22, 2011)

Lift off this Saturday - fingers crossed!









> The one-hour-and-43-minute launch window will now open at 10:02 local time (15:02 GMT). MSL's cruise to Mars should take eight-and-a-half months.
> 
> The rover will aim to touch down in an equatorial depression called Gale Crater, where it will use its suite of 10 instruments to assess whether the Red Planet has ever been habitable.
> 
> ...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15821141


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## editor (Nov 22, 2011)

The landing procedure is incredibly complex:






Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20013105-239.html


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## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

Possibly merge with the previous thread on the topic?
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/mars-rover-sky-crane-looks-sensational.272670/


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## editor (Nov 22, 2011)

Done! I hate the merge function on Xeno. Well fiddly.


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## gabi (Nov 22, 2011)

that looks like a well-dodgy plan. so many things could go wrong. lets hope this dude's not involved


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## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

I found it easier to bump the older thread to get it on the front page along with the newer one, then you can select them both more easily.


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## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

This robot _shoots rocks with a laser_ by the way. We are sending a robot to Mars to shoot rocks with lasers.  *We are sending a robot to Mars to shoot rocks with lasers. *


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## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

I really hope they've tested that skycrane somewhere on earth. It looks totally made of fail to me.


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## weltweit (Nov 22, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> I really hope they've tested that skycrane somewhere on earth. It looks totally made of fail to me.



Indeed, I have just watched the video and there are so many things that have to work right to get the robot on the ground. Who is to say that it will be over a nice smooth bit of the planet as the video, what precautions have they against coming down on a mountain?


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## Hocus Eye. (Nov 22, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Indeed, I have just watched the video and there are so many things that have to work right to get the robot on the ground. Who is to say that it will be over a nice smooth bit of the planet as the video, what precautions have they against coming down on a mountain?


I expect they have checked out the landing site on Google Mars. Yes there really is such a thing.


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## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Indeed, I have just watched the video and there are so many things that have to work right to get the robot on the ground. Who is to say that it will be over a nice smooth bit of the planet as the video, what precautions have they against coming down on a mountain?


Extensive surveys by the three current mars orbiters (NASA's Matrs Odyssey and Reconnaissance Orbiter, and ESA's Mars Express) have been used to select smooth landing sites. By making course adjustments on approach, the actual landing area can be narrowed down very well (an ellipse 20 x 25km). The lander itself has a downwards facing radar that scans the landing site starting pretty high up. Radar is good at differentiating smooth from rough surfaces, so that data will be used to steer the lander down to the smoothest possible surface.


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## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Extensive surveys by the three current mars orbiters (NASA's Matrs Odyssey and Reconnaissance Orbiter, and ESA's Mars Express) have been used to select smooth landing sites. By making course adjustments on approach, the actual landing area can be narrowed down very well (an ellipse 20 x 25km). The lander itself has a downwards facing radar that scans the landing site starting pretty high up. Radar is good at differentiating smooth from rough surfaces, so that data will be used to steer the lander down to the smoothest possible surface.



I know they've done stuff about the landing site, but rocket-powered skycranes in sparse atmospheres are hardly a proven technology.

I see here they have tested the crane bit in a lab, but surely they'd want to test the crane hovering over some high-altitiude Peruvian desert laying down payloads.


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## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

It's all built for martian Gs though. You'd have to test one built for earth Gs and then you're testing something else


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## editor (Nov 26, 2011)

Fingers crossed for the launch - 3:02pm today!
Live stream here: http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv+Mashable+(Mashable)&medium=6540154


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## Crispy (Nov 26, 2011)

T minus 1 hour. I have to go out


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## ferrelhadley (Nov 26, 2011)

The final part of the landing system is very similar to the Surveyor moon probes in that it is a rocket to slow descent. The difference being it hand the probe like a parachute rather than being underneath.

Hmmm the AI on the lander though, thats gotta be a fair bit of code.


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## Crispy (Dec 13, 2011)

Here's a detailed paper on the entry/landing procedure for MSL. Complex doesn't begin to describe it!

http://www.extracrispy.co.uk/MSL-landing.pdf


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## stuff_it (Dec 13, 2011)

gabi said:


> that looks like a well-dodgy plan. so many things could go wrong. lets hope this dude's not involved


But the waffles will be epic....


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## editor (May 24, 2012)

Blimey. I didn't realise the rover was so huge - it weighs 2,000-pound and measures 10-foot long!



http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120427.html

*edit: I've just found the other thread. Will  merge.


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## editor (May 24, 2012)

*merged


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## dilute micro (May 25, 2012)

Crispy said:


> This robot _shoots rocks with a laser_ by the way. We are sending a robot to Mars to shoot rocks with lasers. *We are sending a robot to Mars to shoot rocks with lasers. *


 
We come in peace.


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## editor (Jul 30, 2012)

Man oh man, I'm keeping everything crossed for this landing but it seems so ridiculously complicated I'm harbouring a few fears.



> The 900kg rover will approach Mars enclosed in a protective capsule - the biggest capsule Nasa has ever used, bigger even than the Apollo Command Module.
> It will arrive at the top of the atmosphere travelling 20,000km/h.
> All that energy has got to be dumped. When the rover's wheels touch the ground six-to-eight minutes later, they must be moving no more than about 1m/s.
> 
> ...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18933037


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## stuff_it (Jul 30, 2012)

weltweit said:


> It does seem very complicated.


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## editor (Jul 30, 2012)

Tonight at 9pm:


> Mission to Mars
> 
> 
> 
> ...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01llnb2


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## ExtraRefined (Jul 31, 2012)

That mad landing procedure in full



The NHM are doing a landing event with webcast and guest speakers, for those hardcore space nerds who fancy being out of bed before dawn next Monday (ie. me)


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## Limejuice (Jul 31, 2012)

Arse. I'll be travelling from about 5 am to the Olympics on Monday morning. I think I'd rather "watch" the landing.

I bet they won't carry the Mars news on the scoreboards. Philistines.

I liked the bit on the Horizon programme when they said every part of the mad-cap descent was the right solution to an engineering problem. If that's the answer, the question must have been pretty majestic.

I can't find a bookie that's offering odds on the landing (but Paddy Power is offering 16/1 against alien life being discovered in 2012).


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## editor (Jul 31, 2012)

I really really really hope all this works.


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## Crispy (Jul 31, 2012)

Limejuice said:


> the question must have been pretty majestic.


 
"How do you autonomously land a tonne payload on the surface of Mars without subjecting it to excessive Gs, heat, chemicals or rough terrain?"


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## Limejuice (Jul 31, 2012)

Crispy said:


> "How do you autonomously land a tonne payload on the surface of Mars without subjecting it to excessive Gs, heat, chemicals or rough terrain?"


That's a pretty majestic question IMO.

Not being a boffin, does your clause 'not subjecting it to excessive Gs' include a possible massive deceleration event? See, as a non-scientist I would have given that its own special question, and linked it to something about preserving the Rover's no-claims bonus.

I really hope it works because the answer to the engineering problems is inbloodygenious. Plus, what's not to love about a one-tonne space car that shoots lasers and hunts for life?


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## 2hats (Jul 31, 2012)

Crispy said:


> "How do you autonomously land a tonne payload on the surface of Mars without subjecting it to excessive Gs, heat, chemicals or rough terrain?"


 
See Viking? Each fully fuelled lander (with the flight shell: aeroshell plus heat shield plus bioshield) weighed in at over a tonne at the top of the martian atmosphere. The final surface package of lander minus spent fuel and flight shell clocked in at about 0.6 tonne.

Though the differences here (in mission design) were to minimise the mass that was to be driven around the surface of the planet, the Viking landers being static, of course, and the dust contamination of the rover itself. Quite what they are expecting to happen in dust storm season, I don't know. Perhaps modelling suggests descent stage exhaust gas driven dust particles would be accelerated to higher velocities than those expected from a natural martian dust storm and/or the descent motors would drive dust up into the immediate atmosphere from much deeper below the martian surface than would naturally occur (and thus create misleading sample profiles for some time after landing) - so they went for the sky crane approach.

Possibly they wanted to shave some weight off by not having to rely on really sturdy landing legs too. The Viking struts/pads were designed to withstand a landing of up to 30g but in the end experienced around only a handful of g. Of course they knew next to nothing about the state and dynamics of the martian atmosphere back then. The gas models used for understanding super and hypersonic flow regimes were less sophisticated too (so they wanted to design in for a big margin of error). A lot of work was done in the 80's to refine these based on data gathered from eg shuttle re-entrys (STS1 exhibited worrying control issues because they started off using a model which missed out on a lot of the important gas physics). There are still major issues though - the regime for an Earth-like atmosphere is quite well understood now. Mars however is largely carbon dioxide and radiative heat behaviour is significantly different. So it's a work in progress...


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## T & P (Jul 31, 2012)

After watching the programme, it feels like it'd be a minor miracle if the mission is a success.

The 'hover crane' that will winch down the rover is cool as fuck.


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## 2hats (Aug 1, 2012)

I notice everything is in metric this time 

The hover crane is not unlike the Viking lander stage in many respects (lots of Viking technology is being recycled/built upon). I think, if everything is on target, key points in the descent profile are clearly the lowering of the rover to the surface (retrorockets based on those used by Viking) but also the supersonic parachute deploy (actually scaled up from Viking).

The parachute has to deploy at Mach 2 and has to quickly decelerate the vehicle to sub Mach 1.4 to try and avoid wild oscillations that will (have the effect of trying to) repeatedly open and close the 'chute envelope (and so dramatically reduce its efficacy). This is one of the most dangerous phases of the descent and one of the key problems with landing on Mars: there's a very narrow window of opportunity in terms of altitude and velocity because the Martian atmosphere is so thin meaning aero-braking isn't as effective so one has to deploy 'chutes at supersonic speeds. Obviously too early and your 'chute fails plus your downrange error can grow, too late and you risk ploughing into the surface. They're also making it harder for themselves as the ideal target touchdown location is about 1km above the (reference) Martian surface (areoid).

The early stage of the entry is interesting too. For the first time they will be flying a guided approach at hypersonic speeds, generating lift at very high speed in the upper atmosphere to both linger there in order to gain the altitude they seek at touchdown, and to minimise positional error at 'chute deploy (some tricks borrowed from Apollo command module entry profiles). The vehicle trajectory even climbs at one point. All previous entries at Mars have been ballistic, except Viking which was a full lift up trajectory (no guidance) in order to reach a high altitude landing site (but with corresponding loss of accuracy - they just wanted to get there and probably wanted to bleed off as much energy as high as possible to play safe anyway - 'chute deploy was at around Mach 1).

Then, of course, the backshell and heatshield have to separate cleanly! Not only does my mind boggle at all the opportunities for it to go wrong but it makes the Viking lander successes seem almost miraculous given what little was known, the approximations made at the time and limits of computer modelling in the mid 70's. Little wonder those landers were built like tanks.


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 2, 2012)

I might start a poll


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 2, 2012)

It's got the lot, Guided entry, Parachute opening at Mach 2, Powered descent using rockets then the rover lowered by a sky crane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Landing

Will it work?


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## dylans (Aug 3, 2012)

It will work. It seems mad but its all based on solid engineering. It will work


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## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2012)

dylans said:


> It will work. It seems mad but its all based on solid engineering. It will work


Like the one where they confused metrick and imperial


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## BigTom (Aug 3, 2012)

They've got a feed for this on twitter: @marscuriosity (which I'm assuming is official.)


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

Success. Mars has this reputation for eating probes, but they've got much better at it.


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## marty21 (Aug 3, 2012)

I hope it works - reading a sci fi book atm about a manned flight to Mars - are they looking into this at all ? Voyage - Stephen Baxter - he suggests a manned flight would take about a year to get there.


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## TitanSound (Aug 3, 2012)

After watching the video of the landing sequence, yes. It HAS to just so we can all marvel at men and women in sheds being bonkers.


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

marty21 said:


> I hope it works - reading a sci fi book atm about a manned flight to Mars - are they looking into this at all ? Voyage - Stephen Baxter - he suggests a manned flight would take about a year to get there.


There have been paper studies after paper studies, but no real money or commitment to a plan. The schedule that most planned visits take is 7.5 months on the voyage out, a 15 month stay on the surface and another 7.5 months to come home. This takes advantage of earth-mars alignment every two years.


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## marty21 (Aug 3, 2012)

Crispy said:


> There have been paper studies after paper studies, but no real money or commitment to a plan. The schedule that most planned visits take is 7.5 months on the voyage out, a 15 month stay on the surface and another 7.5 months to come home. This takes advantage of earth-mars alignment every two years.


 hell of a trip - there have been people in the space station for long periods - a year+ ?


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

marty21 said:


> hell of a trip - there have been people in the space station for long periods - a year+ ?


Yeah, longest stay in space is (wiki...) 437 days. ISS crew rotations are up to 6 months. There have been simulated mars missions on earth. This was the latest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15574646 (but this is a much shorter trip. In the real world, a 500 day mission would be a high-energy flight and more expensive)


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## EastEnder (Aug 3, 2012)

I desperately want it to work, but I just don't think it will.


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## weltweit (Aug 3, 2012)

EastEnder said:


> I desperately want it to work, but I just don't think it will.


I am kind of in the same boat.
It seems very complicated and with so many things that have to go right there are just more things that could go wrong.

I am going to cross my fingers and hope everything goes to plan.


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## 2hats (Aug 3, 2012)

How do you land humans on Mars and still meet your obligations under the UN treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space/COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy? Not only in avoiding the accidental introduction of Earth microbes to Mars but the possibility of returning Martian life to Earth. You can't clean a human to planetary protection standards. Even if it is possible to avoid cross-contamination (at some suitably ultra-low level of risk), it will significantly drive the cost of a mission up. Wasn't much of an issue for the Moon but will be for Mars...


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## editor (Aug 3, 2012)

This is nerve wracking stuff.


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## dylans (Aug 3, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> Like the one where they confused metrick and imperial


Did they spell metric wrong as well? God, you'd think scientists would be able to spell a simple word. NASA's standards are slipping


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## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2012)

dylans said:


> Did they spell metric wrong as well? God, you'd think scientists would be able to spell a simple word. NASA's standards are slipping


you thick fuck. in metrick the rate of gravitational acceleration in m/s2 is 9.80665; in imperial it is about 32 f/s2. if you fuck it up and get confused then your fucking expensive bauble is going to whack into the planet's surface at an ungodly speed.


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

thic fuc, surely


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## dylans (Aug 3, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> you thick fuck. in metrick the rate of gravitational acceleration in m/s2 is 9.80665; in imperial it is about 32 f/s2. if you fuck it up and get confused then your fucking expensive bauble is going to whack into the planet's surface at an ungodly speed.


in metric


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## 2hats (Aug 3, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> you thick fuck. in metrick the rate of gravitational acceleration in m/s2 is 9.80665; in imperial it is about 32 f/s2. if you fuck it up and get confused then your fucking expensive bauble is going to whack into the planet's surface at an ungodly speed.


 
Wrong planet, and besides, you'd miss.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 3, 2012)

I'd like to think whatsis face, cornishman with the huge 'burns will be excited to see success and not thinking 'you bastards! we were so close!'. Man that was a downer on christmas day.


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## 2hats (Aug 3, 2012)

To the OP: should work. The engineering is sound and most has been demonstrated before. Hopefully they have covered all scenarios with the guidance software and thoroughly tested it...


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

The bouncing airbag landing of the last pair of rovers was much more risky, IMO.


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## dylans (Aug 3, 2012)

Is there anything live online on monday morning? Outside the natural history museum's event I mean. I would like to wake my kid up for the landing if there is anything to watch that is.

If I was in London I would have liked to have taken him to the NHM event but at 6.00 am we can't get there from brum. (sold out now anyway)


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

nasa tv will be covering it live
www.nasa.gov/ntv


There won't be much to watch besides excited engineers and 3d simulations. First images probably won't arrive until some hours later.


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## dylans (Aug 3, 2012)

Crispy said:


> nasa tv will be covering it live
> www.nasa.gov/ntv


excellent thanks.


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## Crispy (Aug 3, 2012)

It'll probably be a few days until they get the data back, but there's a downward-pointing camera which will be recording 5 fps from heatshield jettison all the way to landing. That will be a very cool video


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## bi0boy (Aug 3, 2012)

Am I right in thinking it's at 6:31am ?


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## Crispy (Aug 4, 2012)

Yes


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## editor (Aug 4, 2012)

*fingers still crossed


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## 2hats (Aug 4, 2012)

NASA TV coverage starts 0430 BST (hint: the JPL public channel will have an uninterrupted clean feed of the entire mission).

Landing time is 0630-0632BST as it's a guided descent profile and timing will obviously vary with the dynamics of the atmosphere at the time. That timing is Earth received time (ie accounts for the 13.8 minutes the data take to reach Earth). It will actually be mid-late afternoon on Mars at the landing site.

First images will be low resolution wide angle thumbnails from the hazard evaluation cameras, which could be received several minutes after touchdown. Images from the descent are scheduled the day after landing, colour images of landing site 2 days after. The first high resolution panorama is due towards the end of the first week.

Note that direct signals from the descending craft will be received on Earth for the first few minutes of the descent but then the Earth sets (from Mars). Subsequent data should be relayed by Mars Odyssey after touchdown but in some scenarios (eg local topography blocking signals) it is possible that no data will be received until the second (or more) day after landing.


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## Quartz (Aug 5, 2012)

There's much more to go wrong this time. I really hope it works.


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 5, 2012)

2hats said:


> To the OP: should work. The engineering is sound and most has been demonstrated before. Hopefully they have covered all scenarios with the guidance software and thoroughly tested it...


Where has it been demonstrated?. I can't believe they're spending so much money and putting in all that effort with untried technology.


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## dylanredefined (Aug 6, 2012)

How could they demonstrate? Its designed to work on Mars ,build one to work on earth and its completely different.


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## TheHoodedClaw (Aug 6, 2012)

Oh hell, this is a bit tense. C'mon Curiosity, please let your mad Heath Robinson tech work.


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## TheHoodedClaw (Aug 6, 2012)

Nasa feed:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/mars/curiosity_news3.html


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## rekil (Aug 6, 2012)

230 metres from landing target. Rubbish.


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## rekil (Aug 6, 2012)

They did it.

Pics already as well.


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## 2hats (Aug 6, 2012)

sleaterkinney said:


> Where has it been demonstrated?. I can't believe they're spending so much money and putting in all that effort with untried technology.



Bits & pieces tried & tested previously (Viking, Apollo, etc). All apparently has worked. Thumbnails arriving.


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## claphamboy (Aug 6, 2012)

copliker said:


> 230 metres from landing target. Rubbish.


 
I don't know, 'drive' a Rover over 200,000,000km, and still can't park it right. 

I bet it was a woman driver.


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## rekil (Aug 6, 2012)

"Holy shit!" - One of the NASA guys.


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## treefrog (Aug 6, 2012)




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## TheHoodedClaw (Aug 6, 2012)

I like that Nasa still has a bunch of grey-beards. And a bunch of women. And a couple of sculpted hair dudes.


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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

Aw yeah


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## dylans (Aug 6, 2012)




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## dylans (Aug 6, 2012)

First pics




> This is the first image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on one of the rover's front left Hazard-Avoidance cameras at one-quarter of full resolution. The clear dust cover on the camera is still on in this view, and dust can be seen around its edge, along with three cover fasteners. The rover's shadow is visible in the foreground.
> As planned, the rover's early engineering images are lower resolution. Larger color images are expected later in the week when the rover's mast, carrying high-resolution cameras, is deployed.


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 6, 2012)

Well done them!


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## dylans (Aug 6, 2012)

Cool pic of the press conference


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## golightly (Aug 6, 2012)

Brilliant!  This is like the Olympics for nerds.


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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was successful in taking a photo of MSL during descent! They'll release the images at a press briefing at 9am PT (5pm UK). Here's a similar photo of the Phoenix lander descending under its parachute on 25th May 2008.



MSL is much bigger, so should be an even more impressive shot


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## editor (Aug 6, 2012)

This is awesome stuff!


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## fractionMan (Aug 6, 2012)

top work!


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## editor (Aug 6, 2012)

I think I'll merge this with the other Mars Curiosity thread and close the poll.


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## xes (Aug 6, 2012)

ooh, I was going to vote "no" just to be silly 

But yay for more stuff on Mars


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## 2hats (Aug 6, 2012)

Crispy said:


> MSL is much bigger, so should be an even more impressive shot



Relative slant ranges?


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## Yetman (Aug 6, 2012)

Surely landing in a crater is going to be the last place you're going to find life, as it'll all have been destroyed by whatever made the crater? And if you do find life, it's likely to have come on the meteor or whatever rather than be native to Mars? 

Still. Excellent stuff


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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

2hats said:


> Relative slant ranges?


Good question.


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## xes (Aug 6, 2012)

some lulz on b3ta main message board for this


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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

Yetman said:


> Surely landing in a crater is going to be the last place you're going to find life, as it'll all have been destroyed by whatever made the crater? And if you do find life, it's likely to have come on the meteor or whatever rather than be native to Mars?
> 
> Still. Excellent stuff


They're not looking for life itself, but evidence of _conditions that could support life_. The target is a crater because it reveals many historical strata of rock. The surface of mars is otherwise covered to a depth of many meters by rubble and dust, which obscures the historical record.


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## dylans (Aug 6, 2012)

Interesting article here about the EDL leader Adam Steltzner. (that's Entry Descent and Landing, not the other EDL)




> Steltzner's path to becoming team leader for this new Mars lander was hardly direct. Unlike many successful engineers, he struggled at school. An elementary school principal told him he wasn't very bright. His high school experience seemed to confirm that.
> "I passed my geometry class the second time with an F plus, because the teacher just didn't want to see me again," he says.
> His father told him he'd never amount to anything but a ditch digger, a remark he still carries with him years later.
> Maybe that's because school wasn't a priority, particularly with the distractions of the flower-power era in the Bay Area.
> ...


.http://m.npr.org/news/front/157597270?page=0


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## editor (Aug 6, 2012)

He has a formidable rock and roll quiff.


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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

2hats said:


> Relative slant ranges?


 
Found it  MRO passed almost directly overhead, so we should get a very clear picture. Not at such a dramatic angle as the Phoenix shot though.

Animation of the flyover:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1099


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## teqniq (Aug 6, 2012)




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## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Found it  MRO passed almost directly overhead, so we should get a very clear picture. Not at such a dramatic angle as the Phoenix shot though.
> 
> Animation of the flyover:
> 
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1099


 
The photo was taken at a distance of 340km. The HiRISE camera has a 1 microradian resolution, which means the maximum pixel dimension for the aeroshell alone could be as high as 13 pixels.

EDIT: Bad maths. Correct pixels now.


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## editor (Aug 6, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Found it  MRO passed almost directly overhead, so we should get a very clear picture. Not at such a dramatic angle as the Phoenix shot though.
> 
> Animation of the flyover:
> 
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1099


'Nuff maths going on there.


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## Limejuice (Aug 6, 2012)

I am so CHUFF£ED!

Alas, I missed the real-time event, because I was taking the family up to the Olympic stadium this morning and had to get a 6.30 train.

We arrived about 8-ish and I was desperate to know if the landing worked. My 14-year-old son couldn't get a signal on the free, much-advertised wifi, and my old phone can only get web coverage in black and white.

So my 17-year-old daughter spotted a young couple sporting the American flag. "Ask them."

In a very non-British, non-reserved way I asked them if they knew whether the lander hand made it successfully down.

"Yes, man, it's there!" the male shouted. "It's landed, It's sending pictures!"

"That, my friend," I said, high-fiving the guy, "is beyond awesome. I would like to buy the American people a beer."

The female part of the couple spontaneously put her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. "That's how we celebrate," she told me.

"Whoa, dude!" exclaimed the American. "USA, go USA!"

"Er, excuse us," said Mrs Limejuice, dragging me away.

In the ensuing silence my son sidled up and said, "Dad, that was so worth it."

So, well done Americans everywhere. For your plucky, laser-eyed space cars, mad-cap rocket cranes and soft-lipped brunettes in London.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 6, 2012)

Does anyone know what the environment is like on Mars?


----------



## Firky (Aug 6, 2012)

Sorry if this has already been mentioned or posted but I have been following it elsewhere.

But I feel I need to say it: Why do NASA feel the need to update the Facebook page for Curiosity in the first person? 

Intensely irritating. 



> "Here's a photograph from one of my rear facing cameras"
> 
> "Eye in the Sky: MRO's HiRISE camera caught this shot of me & my parachute during landing at Mars."




MY PARACHUTE AND I.


----------



## dylans (Aug 6, 2012)

That   is   so   fucking   cool.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 6, 2012)

Oh My Fucking God


----------



## Firky (Aug 6, 2012)

Facebook seems to be the quickest to update BTW.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 6, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Does anyone know what the environment is like on Mars?


scratch that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Atmosphere


----------



## T & P (Aug 6, 2012)

I still can't believe they pulled it off. Fucking kudos to NASA 

Oh but to see real footage of the flying crane delivering Curiosity to the ground...


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 6, 2012)

That pic of the parachute is great

"If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1290


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 6, 2012)

Heh the Apple blogs are frothing at the mouth due to the tech used for this being pretty much Apple based. 








> Any Mac fan watching the Mars Curiosity landing last night probably noticed the abundance of glowing Apple logos on the desks of NASA engineers and scientists. Exactly how all the Macs participated in managing Curiosity from millions of miles away is unknown, but the overwhelming presence of MacBook Pro’s should tell you they played an important enough roll to make any Apple fan proud.


----------



## T & P (Aug 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh the Apple blogs are frothing at the mouth due to the tech used for this being pretty much Apple based.


 
Stand by for the rover to stop working in three months when it does not confirm it agrees to the latest T&C update.


----------



## editor (Aug 6, 2012)

Here's a more balanced view of the mission's tech:


> According to NASA, Curiosity is equipped with just 2GB of flash memory (the new MacBook Air offers up 64GB, 128GB, or 265GB). However, that 2GB is eight times as much as previous Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, had on board the space agency said.
> 
> Curiosity's computer chip also got a speed boost over its younger siblings. It clocks at up to 200 megahertz, 10 times the clock of the Spirit and Opportunity computers. There's also 256MB of RAM and 256KB of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory in Curiosity's calculating engine.
> 
> ...


----------



## dylans (Aug 7, 2012)

Another cool pic with Mt Sharp in the distance


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## editor (Aug 7, 2012)

Looks fantastic.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 7, 2012)

Here's the preliminary landing camera video



There will be a full hi-definition, full duration version later, as bandwidth allows.


----------



## wayward bob (Aug 7, 2012)

http://twitter.com/marscuroisity




> *Curoisity Rover* ‏@*MarsCuroisity*
> "OH LOOK, ANOTHER LIGHT BROWN ROCK." - ME, EVERY FUCKING DAY FROM NOW UNTIL I FUCKING DIE.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 7, 2012)

Gold medal for Curiousity in the 563 billion meters.


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## dylans (Aug 7, 2012)

> This color thumbnail image was obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover during its descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet (16 meters) from the spacecraft. It was obtained two and one-half minutes before touching down on the surface of Mars and about three seconds after heat shield separation. It is among the first color images Curiosity sent back from Mars. The resolution of all of the MARDI frames is reduced by a factor of eight in order for them to be promptly received on Earth during this early phase of the mission. Full resolution (1,600 by 1,200 pixel) images will be returned to Earth over the next several months as Curiosity begins its scientific exploration of Mars.


----------



## T & P (Aug 7, 2012)

^ Clearly a hologram.


----------



## dylans (Aug 7, 2012)

T & P said:


> ^ Clearly a hologram.


Its a flying saucer from Earth


----------



## dylans (Aug 7, 2012)

First colour landscape pic 



> This view of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing. (The team calls this day Sol 1, which is the first Martian day of operations; Sol 1 began on Aug. 6, 2012.)
> 
> In the distance, the image shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The image is murky because the MAHLI's removable dust cover is apparently coated with dust blown onto the camera during the rover's terminal descent. Images taken without the dust cover in place are expected during checkout of the robotic arm in coming weeks.
> 
> ...


----------



## Firky (Aug 7, 2012)




----------



## 2hats (Aug 7, 2012)

It was a little painful to watch the live feed of the descent and spot the interview guest who was focused on domestic politics/trotting out half arsed jingoistic nonsense to play to ill-informed voters. Step forward Obama's science advisor John Holdren who came out with "we (the USA) are the only country that has landed surface landers on any other planet" (see from 45 minutes here).

Um, Venera (and I'd add Huygens, Hayabusa).

Increasingly less provincial viewpoints as we moved from NASA administrator Charlie Bolden to JPL directory Charles Elachi... There are few space science missions that don't involve international collaboration and most make a point of it.


----------



## cesare (Aug 7, 2012)

They were commenting in the early morning news programme that it was a pity that the US weren't being quite as gracious as they were previously with Apollo, "on behalf of humanity" type of thing.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 7, 2012)

cesare said:


> They were commenting in the early morning news programme that it was a pity that the US weren't being quite as gracious as they were previously with Apollo, "on behalf of humanity" type of thing.


 
Couldn't tell it's an election year, I guess. 

Anyway, MSL Sol 2 post-landing news briefing coming up in a few minutes...


----------



## cesare (Aug 7, 2012)

2hats said:


> Couldn't tell it's an election year, I guess.



The BBC presenter, presumably for "impartiality" reasons, swiftly mumbled something about NASA having a difficult time recently etc.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 7, 2012)

The "crime scene" as spotted by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:



Detail in the parachute still attached to the backshell:



Better imaging opportunity expected in 5 days time, I think it was (e2a: these were a 'special' at extreme slant range, so lower resolution, more dust obscuration, greater atmospheric extinction and sub-optimal lighting angles).

Curiosity high gain antenna appears to have deployed properly.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 7, 2012)

dylans said:


> That is so fucking cool.


 
The plummeting heat shield was actually in the wider shot (subsequently spotted):


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 7, 2012)

Much longer video

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl


----------



## editor (Aug 8, 2012)

BBC report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19172564


----------



## ExtraRefined (Aug 8, 2012)

firky said:


>


 
It's not even accurate really. The Soviets did the first flyby and first landing, although the latter was an almost total failure.


----------



## editor (Aug 8, 2012)

Here's some stunning panoramas from Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. More here: http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/mars-interactive-panorama/

Hopefully we'll be seeing even better pics soon from this mission!


----------



## dylans (Aug 8, 2012)

First navcam images 

Right Navcam 





Left navcam


----------



## editor (Aug 8, 2012)

Stunning!

*thumbs*


----------



## Crispy (Aug 8, 2012)

Mountains!


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Aug 8, 2012)

Simply bonkers.


----------



## bi0boy (Aug 8, 2012)

Hard to judge distance on Mars, are they mountains or little hillocks 200 yards away?


----------



## Crispy (Aug 8, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> Hard to judge distance on Mars, are they mountains or little hillocks 200 yards away?


They're mountains. The rover landed inside the white circle. The mountain ranges are actually the rim of the crater to the NE and SW.






They're thousands of meters tall. The mountain in front of the rover:






is 4,500m high. Mars' low gravity means that the vertical features are TALL


----------



## bi0boy (Aug 8, 2012)

Taller mountains plus shorter horizons would be well discombobulating if you were actually there or didn't have a map.


----------



## Firky (Aug 8, 2012)

They also have sand geysers, that spit up sand and small debris miles into the atmosphere.


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## Firky (Aug 8, 2012)

I am hoping Brian Cox does a good documentary on all this and isn't forced to dumb it down for complete and utter morons.


----------



## xes (Aug 8, 2012)

you can hope all you like


----------



## Crispy (Aug 8, 2012)

I just can't wait until our exploration technology gets good enough to take pictures of the _really _dramatic scenery on Mars. There are vertical cliffs 8km tall.


----------



## RaverDrew (Aug 8, 2012)

black and white retro style photos ?

NASA you hipster twats


----------



## PursuedByBears (Aug 8, 2012)

Amazing pictures, proper exciting stuff.


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## editor (Aug 8, 2012)

The 19760s Viking pic has an air of Instagram colour about it.


----------



## dylans (Aug 8, 2012)

Hi Res version of the heat shield separation



> This color full-resolution image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover was obtained during descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet (16 meters) from the spacecraft.
> 
> This image shows the inside surface of the heat shield, with its protective multi-layered insulation. The bright patches are calibration targets for MARDI. Also seen in this image is the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrument (MEDLI) hardware attached to the inside surface.
> 
> At this range, the image has a spatial scale of 0.4 inches (1 cm) per pixel. It is the 36th MARDI image, obtained about three seconds after heat shield separation and about two and one-half minutes before touchdown


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## dylans (Aug 8, 2012)

First colour panorama pics expected tomorrow.


----------



## Firky (Aug 8, 2012)

dylans said:


> Hi Res version of the heat shield separation


 
That is purely mint.


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## 2hats (Aug 9, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Mars' low gravity means that the vertical features are TALL


 
Geology plays an important role. If your building material has sufficient compressive strength then it will build higher. Unlike compared to a moon of Saturn, say, the geology of Mars and Earth isn't hugely dissimilar.

So, that being roughly equal, to a good approximation the maximum height of a mountain will be inversely proportional to the radius of the planet (and so varies with gravity). Mars is almost half the radius of Earth so mountainous features can be (up to) about twice as tall: ~20km on Mars, 10km on Earth. Which is not far off what we see - Olympus Mons and Mauna Kea.

Gravity is important though from an isostatic point of view. The mountains of Earth sit on the crust floating on the fluid upper mantle. As those mountains rise and increase in mass the crust deforms plastically and the peaks tend to lower. This is less pronounced on Mars.

Also, there is quite likely still volcanic activity on Mars but little plate tectonics, certainly nothing close to the degree on Earth. So Martian volcanoes probably have tended to grow as they sat over the same eruptive hot spot rather than drifting away.

Erosion would influence the number and age of the highest features. The most recently formed mountains tend to be the highest on Earth (recently active volcanoes, like Mauna Kea and Loa, the Himalayas are also relatively young). On Earth there's a wider range of ongoing erosive processes (water, aeolian, chemical, volcanic subduction, vegetative, anthropogenic) and the atmosphere is denser. On Mars the primary remaining process would appear to be wind driven erosion. The planetary/convective boundary layers on Mars are far less deeper than Earth's and wind speeds lower too.

So the bias is for Mars to tend to have higher features than hang around longer.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 9, 2012)

First 360 degree colour panorama (low resolution):







The sky crane descent motor exhaust plume marks (grey pairs) can be seen either side of the rover. The left hand pair appear to have disturbed the surface dust to the point that bare rock has been exposed. High resolution (8 times) image to follow in coming days.

(e2a: blocky effect due to it being a mosaic of 130 individual images).


----------



## teqniq (Aug 10, 2012)

Thanks for all the pix and updates folks, all collated in one handy thread.


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## editor (Aug 10, 2012)

I'm loving all this.


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## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

editor said:


> Here's a more balanced view of the mission's tech:


 
The back end servers and mission control/support room engineers' workstations comprising the ground data systems are all running Linux - RedHat last time I checked (Solaris is a less used option for some missions). They are also using Amazon's cloud (also Linux based - generally accepted to be a customised RedHat) for this mission to analyse images, and distribute them.

The vast bulk of compute work in the space sciences is done with Linux and has been for a good decade or more. Personal laptops and desktops tend to be Mac OS X primarily because it's unix based so integrates well with Linux (plus legacy systems) and can run ~3 decades worth of scientific software and libraries back from SunOS/Solaris/DEC/OSF days. It can also run the mickey mouse office and 'doze software too (natively or via virtualisation), when you're forced to.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

The impact dust cloud from the plummeting sky crane descent stage appears to have been spotted in one of the early hazcam images:


----------



## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

Initial self portrait... (mix of resolutions).


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## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

Landing error of just over 2km overshoot downrange past the ideal location. It seems this may have been influenced to some degree by tailwinds (to which the vehicle is highly sensitive during descent) but almost certainly due to a very late bank reversal (terminal energy management just like Apollo command module returns and shuttle re-entry) during the guided portion of the flight. This resulted in slight additional lift taking the vehicle a km or so too high right at the end of the range control by which point there was no room left to correct it. It's a trade between downrange error and crossrange error and there is less wiggle room for the latter (think long, thin target ellipse) so you accept the former. Every time you correct downrange error you potentially introduce additional crossrange error (you are steering left/right to bleed off energy) and there was simply no time left to reduce that (they were at chute deploy). There's still more analysis of the descent to perform over the coming months.


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## Firky (Aug 10, 2012)

2KM is a heck of an overshoot when you travel at about 3" a second flat out/


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## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

Fortunately anywhere inside the target ellipse would do and they were comfortably inside it. An improvement on preceding missions - comparison of landing ellipses (asterisk marks the eventual landing spot):


----------



## 2hats (Aug 10, 2012)

Zooming in on the above (smallest) ellipse from post 160 (represented here as the portion of light blue ellipse):






the ideal landing point is precisely 2.4 km uprange (ie just outside the above image, left of 137.4 longitude, -4.58 latitude).

The dark blue ellipse was the predicted impact area for the six inert tungsten entry ballast masses that were ejected after guided entry but prior to parachute deployment (in order to restore the centre of mass after it was offset before entry to facilitate steering by ejecting two other ballast masses). The small blue circles are the predicted individual ballast mass impact points and the arrowed black marks are the actual impact craters as imaged by MRO:






MRO is scheduled to make a nadir pass (pretty much overhead the landing site) Sunday so there should be a higher resolution HiRISE image of the entire 'crime scene' come the start of the week.


----------



## editor (Aug 13, 2012)

Another ace pic: 







http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16052-color.html


----------



## Stanley Edwards (Aug 13, 2012)

editor said:


> Another ace pic:
> 
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16052-color.html


 
Something very haunting about this image. Incredible stuff, quite mind blowing.


----------



## kittyP (Aug 13, 2012)

Stanley Edwards said:
			
		

> Something very haunting about this image. Incredible stuff, quite mind blowing.



It's like something from an 80s post apocalyptic film.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 13, 2012)

editor said:


> Another ace pic:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can quite clearly see a dirt track in the middle of this image which is probably how the martians are able to drive into and out of the crater!


----------



## Teepee (Aug 13, 2012)

2hats said:


> Zooming in on the above (smallest) ellipse from post 160 (represented here as the portion of light blue ellipse):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Any idea if it would be possible for them to inspect the fresh craters made by the ballast? That's where I'd look for subsurface bacteria.


----------



## Teepee (Aug 13, 2012)

Stanley Edwards said:


> Something very haunting about this image. Incredible stuff, quite mind blowing.


Agreed. A planet that's as far as we know, totally dead and lifeless. Anyone there would be totally, totally alone. Imagining such a place makes me feel something profound.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 13, 2012)

Teepee said:


> Any idea if it would be possible for them to inspect the fresh craters made by the ballast? That's where I'd look for subsurface bacteria.


 
They've made a point of not going near the impact craters from the sky crane, heat shield and back shell/chute to avoid ammonia and hydrazine contamination from the descent motors/cruise propulsion system and entanglement with the chute, of course. The concern is contamination would skew results from the sample analysis package which is far more sensitive than anything comparable that has flown before.

I believe there has been some discussion of photographing the impact sites from a 'safe' distance. The 100mm mast camera is almost 2m above the ground so might get a reasonable view. It'd be about understanding the dynamics of the final few seconds of the descent stage though rather than local chemical analysis (they wouldn't get close enough for that). The heat shield was instrumented so they already have a good idea of what it was doing when it ploughed into Mars.

To return to your question, the ballast weights, they are inert tungsten so yes, they could in theory be visited, but I don't think it's in the science plan. I suppose there is a slim chance that someone will make the scientific case for inspection and they could detour - team members can vote on the route and propose changes as they go along and make discoveries on the way, but bear in mind they are some 10km downrange of the landing site (it would take at least a couple of weeks to get there, if they didn't get distracted on the way, then several more days of investigation, so call that a months worth of a detour). I suppose that they could go and look at the end of the main mission (though since that's some 2 years away, one might argue it's a bit late by then and besides, the rover could be a fair old distance away).

ISTR, if they come across any signs of water they have to back off whilst evaluating the degree of contamination they might cause by driving the rover in (protocols regarding planetary protection and science return concerns).


----------



## Teepee (Aug 13, 2012)

2hats said:


> They've made a point of not going near the impact craters from the sky crane, heat shield and back shell/chute to avoid ammonia and hydrazine contamination from the descent motors/cruise propulsion system and entanglement with the chute, of course. The concern is contamination would skew results from the sample analysis package which is far more sensitive than anything comparable that has flown before.
> 
> I believe there has been some discussion of photographing the impact sites from a 'safe' distance. The 100mm mast camera is almost 2m above the ground so might get a reasonable view. It'd be about understanding the dynamics of the final few seconds of the descent stage though rather than local chemical analysis (they wouldn't get close enough for that). The heat shield was instrumented so they already have a good idea of what it was doing when it ploughed into Mars.
> 
> ...



Excellent response to my question, thanks a lot


----------



## 2hats (Aug 13, 2012)

2hats said:


> MRO is scheduled to make a nadir pass (pretty much overhead the landing site) Sunday so there should be a higher resolution HiRISE image of the entire 'crime scene' come the start of the week.


 
I think a new image is now scheduled for release this Wednesday. There's another good landing site overhead pass opportunity in about 5 days time.


----------



## gabi (Aug 13, 2012)

2hats - loving your stuff on this thread. do you work in the space industry? or just a massive geek?


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## 2hats (Aug 13, 2012)

gabi said:


> do you work in the space industry? or just a massive geek?


 
Both.


----------



## editor (Aug 14, 2012)

Interactive panorama of Mars. Yeah!
http://www.urban75.org/blog/interactive-mars-panorama-as-seen-by-the-curiosity-rover/


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## Stanley Edwards (Aug 14, 2012)

Seeing the sun from Mars is fucking surreal


----------



## ExtraRefined (Aug 14, 2012)

Stanley Edwards said:


> Seeing the sun from Mars is fucking surreal


 
We've also got pictures of the transit of Mars's moon from Mars and Earth from Mars

Unfortunately I don't think Curiosity's got good enough cameras to image next year's transit of Mercury from Mars.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 14, 2012)

The rover gets a workout - exercise _on the spot_ to check out the wheels and suspension - this coming weekend. If everything looks good the plan is to start driving first thing next week.


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## 2hats (Aug 14, 2012)

New HiRISE nadir image:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/676478main_pia16057-full_full.jpg

Pass in 5 days will be used to make a stereo pair. 

More here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/telecon/


----------



## editor (Aug 14, 2012)

Got to be worth embedding the colour-enhanced view shows NASA's Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.


----------



## editor (Aug 14, 2012)

Mindblowing!









> Destination Mount Sharp
> This image from NASA's Curiosity rover looks south of the rover's landing site on Mars towards Mount Sharp. This is part of a larger,high-resolution color mosaic made from images obtained by Curiosity's Mast Camera.
> 
> In this version of the image, colors have been modified as if the scene were transported to Earth and illuminated by terrestrial sunlight. This processing, called "white balancing," is useful for scientists to be able to recognize and distinguish rocks by color in more familiar lighting.
> ...


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16053.html


----------



## teqniq (Aug 14, 2012)

Ace!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Aug 14, 2012)

Every single one of the pics coming back is mind blowing


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2012)

There is a lot of blue debris around curiosity. I suppose that is something to do with landing and not a bit of equipment that has exploded.


----------



## teqniq (Aug 14, 2012)

I think it has something to do with the colour enhancement but it's still pretty cool


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2012)

Now if they can only find their way back to that martian track out of the crater they will be fine and dandy!


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## 2hats (Aug 14, 2012)

teqniq said:


> I think it has something to do with the colour enhancement but it's still pretty cool


 
It's the colour enhancement of the surface regolith that was disturbed by the descent motors.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 14, 2012)

editor said:


> Got to be worth embedding


 
Definitely. Just not something I can do from the dumbphone.


----------



## teqniq (Aug 14, 2012)

2hats said:


> It's the colour enhancement of the surface regolith that was disturbed by the descent motors.


Ah ok thanks


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## 2hats (Aug 14, 2012)

Perhaps worth pointing out that the HiRISE image has a significant IR component (the camera 'sees' in three channels: (i) red, (ii) on the border of blue/green, and (iii) the near infra-red). So the whole image is false colour, just with most of the scene being matched to a typical Martian surface colour. Colour variations indicate both different material composition and different surface texture. With this particular colour map, the exposed rock has tended towards deep blue, leading to clear highlighting of the locations scrubbed by the descent plume. In reality that rock is some not-quite-so-exciting shades of grey.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 17, 2012)

Someone got impatient waiting for the hi-res descent video so they made their own unofficial version:


----------



## 2hats (Aug 17, 2012)

I read that there are plans to do some astronomy from the surface of Mars with Curisosity's cameras. Should be interesting. It's been done before (meteor and eclipse observing) but the cameras are, of course, so much better this time.

To whet your appetite - the Earth from Mars taken by Spirit several years ago:


----------



## Crispy (Aug 17, 2012)

Now, I do know that Earth/Moon are visible as a binary system from Mars, as seen in this Mars Global Surveyor photo (but also visible as two distinct dots by the naked eye, if wikipedia is to be believed):






So, is MSL's camera good enough to resolve earth-moon as two separate dots in the sky?


----------



## 2hats (Aug 17, 2012)

Crispy said:


> So, is MSL's camera good enough to resolve earth-moon as two separate dots in the sky?


 
Quick calculation: the 100mm mastcam supposedly has a resolution of 0.2 milliradians (limit quoted as 3cm at 135m). Greatest Earth Moon separation seen from Mars at closest approach would be about 7 millirad. Worst case 0.9 millirad. So I would imagine that they should be able to resolve Earth and the Moon given reasonable geometry and atmospheric conditions, at some point.

Should be easy to spot the Earth from Mars (can get to around magnitude -3 I think). The (Earth's) Moon as well (get's to mag +1 or maybe better at times). Since the naked eye (20/20) can resolve down to about 1 millirad then it should easily resolve both for a large part of the Martian year (at opposition it's going to co-located in with the sun in the daytime sky so hard to spot anyway).

In summary: should be possible to image both in the Martian night sky (and even see both if you were there).


----------



## 2hats (Aug 17, 2012)

New images from today's teleconference just (current link for images and captions). Including some of the first targets they plan to drive to.


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 18, 2012)

This is an image showing Gale crater in a map from 1889 and today


----------



## 2hats (Aug 18, 2012)

Initial destinations announced for the rover...




Glenelg is 400m ESE of the landing location. It's the apparent (from HiRISE imagery) confluence of three different geologies:




so they want to drive over there first and then drill in that area. But before they head off, overnight tonight, they are going to test fire the laser (chemcam) at this rock:




dubbed rock N165 (full res here). This is really a shakedown test for the laser/chemcam - the rock isn't being targeted because they necessarily expect it to yield some incredible scientific revelations.

Once they've done that, and having performed the test 'wiggle' of the wheels (next few days) then first movements are to trundle forward a metre or so, examine the landing point then reverse back up, drive a couple of arcs, dance on the spot (so to speak), just to check out the various components associated with the drive system. If all is well then they will head off to Glenelg. To give you some idea of timescales: it will nominally take a month to get to Glenelg (assuming they don't see something that distracts them on the way, like some fascinating soil). The plan is to then do 1-2 months of science there, so it will be towards the end of the year before they set off to the base of Mt Sharp, by skirting SW along the northside of a dune field (black smudgy area in the first image) then turning south to start the climb.

They've dropped some hints that they might at some point drive close to some of the impacted descent components and get some hires mastcam images. I suppose (wild stab) they might image the chute/back shield from a distance on the drive back to the base of Mt Sharp, but they're being fairly non-committal about it all (it's not a science priority at all and probably only being considered from a largely PR point of view, I would guess). Might depend on whether there's a suitably located mound they can drive over to gain a good view looking down on the intended target.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 18, 2012)

The heat shield impacting the Martian surface as caught by the descent imager:


----------



## 2hats (Aug 20, 2012)

N165 aka Coronation rock has been targeted:




The results are still being analysed but the kit appears to work.

More details and higher resolution images here.


----------



## editor (Aug 20, 2012)

Here's the press release from NASA:


> NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called "Coronation."
> 
> The mission's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, hit the fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.
> 
> ...


----------



## 2hats (Aug 20, 2012)

Distraction: one of the JPL engineers has cooked up a MSL rover Lego model complete with sky crane.







Lego are considering realising it as a commercial kit.


----------



## xes (Aug 20, 2012)

win^

I will definatly be getting one of those if they start making them. (for my nephews, honestly  )


----------



## alsoknownas (Aug 20, 2012)

Two questions:

How long will they be able to operate the rover for, and get data back from it?

Will we be getting any HD footage (720p or over) from Mars?


----------



## TitanSound (Aug 20, 2012)

alsoknownas said:


> Two questions:
> 
> How long will they be able to operate the rover for, and get data back from it?
> 
> Will we be getting any HD footage (720p or over) from Mars?


 
1) About a year is the forecast I think. But of the two rovers who were dropped off in 2004, one is still going. They were only meant to last for 90 days but Spirit went until 2010 and Opportunity is still going iirc. Something to do with dust storms actually helping to clean the solar panels.

2) No idea.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 20, 2012)

alsoknownas said:


> Two questions:
> 
> How long will they be able to operate the rover for, and get data back from it?


 
The primary mission is almost 2 years (23 months = one Martian year, about 25km of driving). Chances are the rover could last several years but the limiting factor will be budget to cover the ground segment (folks at JPL, collaborating institutes to plan new science, instruct the rover, troubleshoot problems, receive and analyse the data) plus competition for time on the DSN (the network of dishes used to communicate with the rover) from subsequent missions.



> Will we be getting any HD footage (720p or over) from Mars?


 
Yes.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 20, 2012)

"footage" meaning movies, no.
lots of stills though, a few of which will make sense if stitched together into a movie: The descent and landing camera, which we;ve already seen some pics from, recorded at around 8 frames/second.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 20, 2012)

The rover is operating so slowly that a true frame rate movie would be pretty boring. There will be plenty of HD movies constructed from the mastcam images... It's going to take days, weeks, or months even to build such movies. The peak data rate for direct transmission to Earth is about 32kbps and 2Mbps via MRO (transmission isn't 24/7 by any stretch) and other data (up and down) will have priorities at times.


----------



## TitanSound (Aug 20, 2012)

2hats said:


> The rover is operating so slowly that a true frame rate movie would be pretty boring. There will be plenty of HD movies constructed from the mastcam images... It's going to take days, weeks, or months even to build such movies. The peak data rate for direct transmission to Earth is about 32kbps and 2Mbps via MRO (transmission isn't 24/7 by any stretch) and other data (up and down) will have priorities at times.


 
You mean they can land the fucking thing in an amazing manner but it cannot watch pron because it will be constantly buffering due to a shitty connection? Disgraceful.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 20, 2012)

TitanSound said:


> You mean they can land the fucking thing in an amazing manner but it cannot watch pron


 
It's got all the red cold Martian pron it will ever need.


----------



## editor (Aug 21, 2012)

The UFO nuts are already off!


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 21, 2012)

editor said:


> The UFO nuts are already off!



Yup. And the next stage is that it was all filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood with Tom Cruise starring as Curiosity.


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 21, 2012)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19338870

Arse. It looks like the weather measuring stuff may be a bit borked. Not a biggie, but with so much success so far any set-back is a kick in the nads.


----------



## T & P (Aug 22, 2012)

Limejuice said:


> Yup. And the next stage is that it was all filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood with Tom Cruise starring as Curiosity.


I have it on good authority that the heat shield protecting Curiosity during its descent was get rid of by controlled explosions.


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 22, 2012)

It's done it's first drive


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 23, 2012)

sleaterkinney said:


> It's done it's first drive


That's a rubbish 3-point turn.

But the parking bay looks generous...


----------



## editor (Aug 24, 2012)

Here's a new video showing most of the high-resolution frames acquired by the Mars Descent Imager between the jettison of the heat shield and touchdown.


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 24, 2012)

editor said:


> Here's a new video showing most of the high-resolution frames acquired by the Mars Descent Imager between the jettison of the heat shield and touchdown.



That's great on full screen.

I still found myself cheering when different phases happened as planned: "We have powered flight".

I even held my breath as the sky crane deployed.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 24, 2012)

Click for VERY LARGE version 

That mountain in the middle is 4km high. (The 5.5km peak of Mt. Sharp proper is further to the South and hidden behind this "false" peak)


----------



## editor (Aug 24, 2012)

That picture is fucking amazing.


----------



## dylans (Aug 25, 2012)

Crispy said:


> View attachment 22394
> 
> Click for VERY LARGE version
> 
> That mountain in the middle is 4km high. (The 5.5km peak of Mt. Sharp proper is further to the South and hidden behind this "false" peak)


That's another planet that is.


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 25, 2012)

Crispy said:


> View attachment 22394
> 
> Click for VERY LARGE version
> 
> That mountain in the middle is 4km high. (The 5.5km peak of Mt. Sharp proper is further to the South and hidden behind this "false" peak)


Awesome.

On full res you almost feel you can reach in and pick the rocks up.

Gobsmacked doesn't cover it.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Aug 26, 2012)

editor said:


> Here's a new video showing most of the high-resolution frames acquired by the Mars Descent Imager between the jettison of the heat shield and touchdown.




I love this. I also love that the ground crew are responding to telemetry from events that have happened minutes before, over which they have no control. The planning and foresight and contingency that human ingenuity built into the lander is an amazing thing.


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 27, 2012)

Someone has done a HD interpolated version of the landing video


----------



## Limejuice (Aug 28, 2012)

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16105.html

A postcard from Mars. Latest picture from Nasa. It's the base of Mount Sharp.

Nasa: This image is a portion of a larger image taken by Curiosity's 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Aug. 23, 2012. See PIA16104. Scientists enhanced the color in one version to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain.


----------



## The Octagon (Aug 28, 2012)

> On Monday, the rover relayed "the first voice recording to be sent from another planet", and on Tuesday it will broadcast a song from artist will.i.am as part of an educational event.


 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19396270

Are we trying to start an interstellar war?


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2012)

Amazing new pics.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2012)

It's taken a self portrait!

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/08/13739487-mars-rover-snaps-first-profile-picture?lite


----------



## sleaterkinney (Sep 13, 2012)

Horizon special on bbc4 now


----------



## TitanSound (Sep 14, 2012)

Johnny 5 is alive!!!


----------



## sleaterkinney (Sep 14, 2012)

It seems to have lots of nooks and crannies to get dust in, but I guess they know what they're doing.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 14, 2012)

sleaterkinney said:


> It seems to have lots of nooks and crannies to get dust in, but I guess they know what they're doing.


It looks rather like someone forgot to put the cover on before they fired it up there!!


----------



## Dr Jon (Sep 25, 2012)

Just spotted:

Wish you could go to Mars? Be patient. Earth is turning into the red planet


----------



## editor (Sep 26, 2012)

Fantastic new photos:





Closest ever view of the surface:




http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/images/index.html


----------



## weltweit (Sep 26, 2012)

editor said:


> Fantastic new photos:


Looks like they miscalculated the distance to that rock and clonked their head on it ...
Wonder how shock resistant that head is!!


----------



## editor (Sep 27, 2012)

They've discovered an old streambed!







> *Remnants of Ancient Streambed on Mars*
> NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named "Hottah" after Hottah Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. It may look like a broken sidewalk, but this geological feature on Mars is actually exposed bedrock made up of smaller fragments cemented together, or what geologists call a sedimentary conglomerate. Scientists theorize that the bedrock was disrupted in the past, giving it the titled angle, most likely via impacts from meteorites.
> 
> The key evidence for the ancient stream comes from the size and rounded shape of the gravel in and around the bedrock. Hottah has pieces of gravel embedded in it, called clasts, up to a couple inches (few centimeters) in size and located within a matrix of sand-sized material. Some of the clasts are round in shape, leading the science team to conclude they were transported by a vigorous flow of water. The grains are too large to have been moved by wind.
> ...


 







> *Link to a Watery Past*
> In this image from NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust. The fractured Link outcrop has blocks of exposed, clean surfaces. Rounded gravel fragments, or clasts, up to a couple inches (few centimeters) in size are in a matrix of white material. Many gravel-sized rocks have eroded out of the outcrop onto the surface, particularly in the left portion of the frame. The outcrop characteristics are consistent with a sedimentary conglomerate, or a rock that was formed by the deposition of water and is composed of many smaller rounded rocks cemented together. Water transport is the only process capable of producing the rounded shape of clasts of this size.
> 
> The Link outcrop was imaged with the 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Sept. 2, 2012, which was the 27th sol, or Martian day of operations.
> ...


http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/


----------



## teqniq (Nov 4, 2012)




----------



## editor (Nov 18, 2012)

Interesting stuff:


> Marking the first time radiation has been measured from the surface of another planet, preliminary data collected using the rover's Radiation Assessment Detector (or RAD for short) revealed that levels on the ground are similar to what astronauts encounter on the International Space Station. What's that mean for space travel? "The astronauts can live in this environment," Don Hassler, principal investigator on Curiosity's RAD hardware, said in a press conference. However, humans would still experience higher levels of radiation on the way to and from the red planet than on its surface. [---]


Full Press release:





> *NASA Rover Providing New Weather and Radiation Data About Mars*
> _November 15, 2012_
> _PASADENA, Calif. -- Observations of wind patterns and natural radiation patterns on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover are helping scientists better understand the environment on the Red Planet's surface_
> _._
> ...


:


----------



## editor (Nov 20, 2012)

Oh, I say! 


> NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made an important discovery “for the history books,” but we’ll have to wait a few weeks to find out what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.
> The discovery was made by Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported today (Nov. 20). SAM is the rover’s onboard chemistry lab, and it’s capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.
> 
> SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity’s huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently.
> ...


----------



## T & P (Nov 21, 2012)

They haven't found oil, have they?

(((Mars)))


----------



## tendril (Nov 27, 2012)

teqniq said:


>


 
how's that been taken then?


----------



## teqniq (Nov 27, 2012)

I did wonder myself, I have no idea... anyone?

Still a cool pic tho


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2012)

tendril said:


> how's that been taken then?


 
The machine's operator moved round the right hand side, check the footprints, and took this photo handheld with a wide angle lens. The machine's operator is called Kevin!


----------



## tendril (Nov 27, 2012)

weltweit said:


> The machine's operator moved round the right hand side, check the footprints, and took this photo handheld with a wide angle lens. The machine's operator is called Kevin!


shades of Capricorn One


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2012)

Not only that but I think I have spotted the driver ...


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2012)

I am a bit concerned about the wheels. It seems they have been damaged, see crop below. Perhaps this damage occurred on landing, or perhaps small rocks are damaging the wheels as they roll.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2012)

The question remains: how did they take that picture?


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2012)

weltweit said:


> The question remains: how did they take that picture?


 
According to NASA:


> High-Resolution Self-Portrait by Curiosity Rover Arm Camera
> 
> On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait.
> 
> The mosaic shows the rover at "Rocknest," the spot in Gale Crater where the mission's first scoop sampling took place. Four scoop scars can be seen in the regolith in front of the rover.


 
So perhaps if you take a 55 patchwork image, the camera may appear or rather dissapear .... hmm.. don't understand.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 28, 2012)

weltweit said:


> So perhaps if you take a 55 patchwork image, the camera may appear or rather dissapear .... hmm.. don't understand.


 
It's just the opposite of the old school photo trick. Appear zero times instead of twice.

For those who fancy it in 3D, try this (18x15 kpixels, 35MB).


----------



## weltweit (Nov 28, 2012)

2hats said:


> It's just the opposite of the old school photo trick. Appear zero times instead of twice....


 
I can see that if the camera is at the right taking photos of the left, it will not appear, and then if it is at the left taking photos of the right again it will not appear. That would mean that the photo of curiosity is incomplete, it is missing its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) which was always behind the frame in all 55 of these images.

Yet I don't quite get why there is no mounting for the MAHLI visible on curiosity. surely when it took the picture of its own base, its base would be visible to it?


----------



## 2hats (Nov 28, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Yet I don't quite get why there is no mounting for the MAHLI visible on curiosity. surely when it took the picture of its own base, its base would be visible to it?


 
Because they have carefully blended umpteen of those images to obscure the foreshortened view of the arm it is mounted on? I guess it's been truncated at the elbow joint. You can see (I'm pretty sure) the shadow of the platform MAHLI/APXS sit on over the upper left portion of the foremost wheel. Semi-wild guesses attached.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 28, 2012)

2hats said:


> Because they have carefully blended umpteen of those images to obscure the foreshortened view of the arm it is mounted on? I guess it's been truncated at the elbow joint. You can see (I'm pretty sure) the shadow of the platform MAHLI/APXS sit on over the upper left portion of the foremost wheel. Semi-wild guesses attached.


 
Yes 2hats I think you are right. Last night I was looking at the same area and I think there is evidence of the start of the MAHLI arm at below and where it blurs out presumably at the location of another of the 55 images:


Also I had a look at some animations of the arm on the NASA website and it seems this bottom right corner is where the arm is based.


----------



## ymu (Dec 1, 2012)

firky said:


> > "Here's a photograph from one of my rear facing cameras"
> >
> > "Eye in the Sky: MRO's HiRISE camera caught this shot of me & my parachute during landing at Mars."
> 
> ...


 
 You need to check the difference between a subject and an object.


----------



## Limejuice (Dec 4, 2012)

It looks like it worked well enough for NASA to take another punt at Mars using (essentially) the same transport techniques.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20603689


----------



## editor (Dec 4, 2012)

That's fantastic news.


----------



## Nylock (Dec 10, 2012)

Meanwhile, Opportunity is still going strong! Fair play to it


----------



## sleaterkinney (Jan 16, 2013)

Tracks from orbit


----------



## sleaterkinney (Jan 22, 2013)

Nylock said:


> Meanwhile, Opportunity is still going strong! Fair play to it


It's almost ready to start it's *10th* year

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20130122.html


----------



## nuffsaid (Feb 6, 2013)

Here come the ancient alien hypotheses, or maybe a bit has fallen off, or maybe it's a trick of the light or perhaps............a mineral

http://www.universetoday.com/99750/another-weird-shiny-thing-on-mars-2/


----------



## golightly (Feb 6, 2013)

nuffsaid said:


>


----------



## editor (Feb 11, 2013)

It's successfully drilled 2.5" into the bedrock on Mars. Incredible stuff.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16728.html


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2013)

Bit more on the drilling:


----------



## Bruce23 (Feb 20, 2013)

When are they going to send a PERSON to Mars. I'll be interested when they manage that.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 4, 2013)

Mars Curiosity rover put into 'safe mode' after glitch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21654308


----------



## editor (Mar 5, 2013)

weltweit said:


> Mars Curiosity rover put into 'safe mode' after glitch
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21654308


I've been following that story with some trepidation.


----------



## Stanley Edwards (Mar 5, 2013)

A minor glitch in the grander scale. This has been brilliant.

Are we the only ones doing this sort of stuff? How will it be written in history a Thousand years from now?


----------



## editor (Mar 5, 2013)

Update: 





> Work to carry out what amounts to an electronic brain transplant aboard the Curiosity Mars rover -- a complex sequence of steps to switch operations to a backup flight computer -- is continuing this week amid ongoing analysis to figure out how to resolve memory corruption discovered last week in the rover's active computer.
> 
> The memory glitch interrupted science operations, forcing flight controllers to put the craft in a low-activity "safe mode" while the computer switch was implemented.
> 
> ...


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162...-to-recovery-from-glitch-in-brain-transplant/


----------



## Firky (Mar 5, 2013)

This is amazing. Still can't get my head around the achievement.


----------



## ExtraRefined (Mar 7, 2013)

Limejuice said:


> It looks like it worked well enough for NASA to take another punt at Mars using (essentially) the same transport techniques.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20603689


 
This better be a sample return mission


----------



## editor (Mar 7, 2013)

ExtraRefined said:


> This better be a sample return mission


Fantastic news. It's amazing stuff.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 7, 2013)

ExtraRefined said:


> This better be a sample return mission


According to rumour, this 2nd rover will do the sample gathering for a future return mission.


----------



## Limejuice (Mar 12, 2013)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21755976

A high level of smectite points to a good chance that Mars had water.

'Smectite' - pure Red Dwarf, innit?


----------



## sleaterkinney (Mar 15, 2013)

Big photo of Mt Sharp

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16768.jpg


----------



## editor (Aug 22, 2014)

Blimey. Mats is really taking it out of the rover. 

This is a before/after:

 

See more here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/20/6...aign=Copy+of+The+Verge+Newsletter+-+8/20/2014


----------



## editor (Dec 23, 2014)

Look at that battered wheel! And, yes. It's on freaking MARS!

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00842/mhli/0842MH0004560010301936E01_DXXX-br2.jpg


----------



## 2hats (Feb 21, 2015)

Nice self-portrait gigapan of MSL Curiosity at Pahrump Hills, sol 868-884, constructed from the image below...


----------



## 2hats (Feb 26, 2015)

Up thread (over two years ago) we had a short discussion of the stitching of images and the lack of the camera arm/platform in self portraits. This short video (that was produced since that discussion) covers the cameras on Curiosity and at 2m45s in clearly explains how the stitched selfies are produced minus the camera arm and platform:


----------



## 2hats (Aug 5, 2015)

New 'selfie' of Curiosity:


----------



## Crispy (Aug 5, 2015)

I always have to remind myself how big Curiosity is.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Aug 5, 2015)

Yeah, it always looks like it would be the size of a remote control car


----------



## editor (Aug 7, 2015)

Neat new site lets you 'explore' Curiosity's mission on Mars..

http://eyes.nasa.gov/curiosity/


----------



## editor (Sep 2, 2015)

There's a suspended spoon on Mars!


(*bottom third of the page, centre)






Raw Images - Mars Science Laboratory


----------



## 2hats (Sep 2, 2015)

editor said:


> There's a suspended spoon on Mars!



Mmm. Aeolian processes (looks like).


----------



## xes (Sep 2, 2015)

How big is it? It's cool as fuck


----------



## fishfinger (Sep 2, 2015)

editor said:


> There's a suspended spoon on Mars!
> 
> 
> (*bottom third of the page, centre)


So _that's_ where I left it


----------



## Signal 11 (Sep 3, 2015)

xes said:


> How big is it? It's cool as fuck


Apparently about 8cm.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 3, 2015)

Note the 'levitating' rock directly to the far right of the 'spoon' (at the edge of the image in post 279, and a little above the level of the 'spoon'). Not that surprising given the huge dust storms that occur every year on Mars. Reminds me of a lot of wind eroded features in the high altitude deserts of northern Chile/southern Bolivia, amongst the Navajo sandstones of S Utah and N Arizona, and similar places.


----------



## editor (Sep 13, 2015)

Amazing new image shows petrified sand dunes:








> Some of the dark sandstone in an area being explored by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows texture and inclined bedding structures characteristic of deposits that formed as sand dunes, then were cemented into rock.
> 
> A panorama from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) that includes a ridge made of this sandstone is online at:
> 
> ...








News | Mars Panorama from Curiosity Shows Petrified Sand Dunes


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2015)

What I find fascinating, and rather awe-inspiring, is that although these processes have Terran analogues, they're 100 times slower on Mars. Most earth geology is measured in millions of years, and it's always being churned over by weather, life and plate tectonics. On Mars a rock can sit in one place for a billion years without undergoing much change at all.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 10, 2015)

Another 'selfie' (click for huge original) assembled from images taken a few days ago:



Note the wheel damage. This is even more evident in this series of wheel survey photos (most recent taken in the last couple of days):



The left middle wheel apparently the most damaged. Ultimately the inner portion may unzip (as below in tests). The good news is that the vehicle will still be able to drive. The bad news is that there is a danger that the unzipped wheel portion may come to rub against the vehicle main body where it could impinge on and wear wheel cables and ultimately cause a short in a drive controller (which could not only impact movement but also communication to the point of end of mission). Mission planners are however looking at mitigation methods - different route selection and software approaches to reduce load and wear on the wheels (due to the suspension design the middle and front wheels were expected to suffer the most abuse).




The cause of the problem (most of the damage) is most likely rocks, wind eroded to a point (see posts above!), which are effectively cemented into the ground, the tips peaking out. These don't _squeeze_ out of the way as Curiosity rolls over them; they are probably cutting in to the wheel skin.

The current impact is that this will slow down the pace of the mission as the vehicle proceeds more carefully, but hopefully it should (as a result) deliver all the main science objectives. This will also have an influence on the design and planning for the Mars 2020 rover (which will be based on the Curiosity vehicle).


----------



## editor (Nov 18, 2015)

It's 200m from 'Dune 1': 



> On its way to higher layers of the mountain where it is investigating how Mars' environment changed billions of years ago, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover will take advantage of a chance to study some modern Martian activity at mobile sand dunes.
> 
> In the next few days, the rover will get its first close-up look at these dark dunes, called the "Bagnold Dunes," which skirt the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. No Mars rover has previously visited a sand dune, as opposed to smaller sand ripples or drifts. One dune Curiosity will investigate is as tall as a two-story building and as broad as a football field. The Bagnold Dunes are active: Images from orbit indicate some of them are migrating as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year. No active dunes have been visited anywhere in the solar system besides Earth.
> 
> ...









The dark band in the lower portion of this Martian scene is part of the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field lining the northwestern edge of Mount Sharp.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2016)

> This view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. The site is part of the dark-sand "Bagnold Dunes" field along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. Images taken from orbit indicate that dunes in the Bagnold field move as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year.
> 
> The component images of this scene were taken on Dec. 18, 2015, by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the 1,197th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.
> 
> ...










> This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of "Namib Dune," which stands about 13 feet (4 meters) high. The site is part of Bagnold Dunes, a band of dark sand dunes along the northwestern flank of Mars' Mount Sharp.
> 
> The component images stitched together into this scene were taken with Curiosity's Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Dec. 17, 2015, during the 1,196th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars. In late 2015 and early 2016, Curiosity is conducting the first up-close studies ever made of active sand dunes anywhere but on Earth. Under the influence of Martian wind, the Bagnold Dunes are migrating up to about one yard or meter per Earth year. The view spans from westward on the left to east-southeastward on the right. It is presented as a cylindrical perspective projection.
> 
> ...










> This view combines multiple images from the telephoto-lens camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover to reveal fine details of the downwind face of "Namib Dune." The site is part of the dark-sand "Bagnold Dunes" field along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. Images taken from orbit have shown that dunes in the Bagnold field move as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year.
> 
> Sand on this face of Namib Dune has cascaded down a slope of about 26 to 28 degrees. The top of the face is about 13 to 17 feet (4 to 5 meters) above the rocky ground at its base.
> 
> ...



Freaking amazing stuff!


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## editor (Jan 5, 2016)

And...








> This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover covers an area in "Bridger Basin" that includes the locations where the rover drilled a target called "Big Sky" on the mission's Sol 1119 (Sept. 29, 2015) and a target called "Greenhorn" on Sol 1137 (Oct. 18, 2015).
> 
> The scene combines portions of several observations taken from sols 1112 to 1126 (Sept. 22 to Oct. 6, 2015) while Curiosity was stationed at Big Sky drilling site.  The Big Sky drill hole is visible in the lower part of the scene.  The Greenhorn target, in a pale fracture zone near the center of the image, had not yet been drilled when the component images were taken.  Researchers selected this pair of drilling sites to investigate the nature of silica enrichment in the fracture zones of the area.
> 
> 'Big Sky' and 'Greenhorn' Drilling Area on Mount Sharp










> This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center of the image -- lies in contact with an overlying geological unit of sandstone.
> 
> Just before Curiosity reached Marias Pass, the rover's laser-firing Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument examined a rock found to be rich in silica, a mineral-forming chemical.
> 
> ...


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## editor (Jan 5, 2016)

Veiny 'Garden City' Site and Surroundings on Mount Sharp, Mars


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## editor (Jan 7, 2016)

Here's a new photo of that well worn wheel.






Hole-y wheels, Curiosity! Mars close-up shows cracks in rover's rollers - CNET


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## ffsear (Jan 7, 2016)

editor said:


> Veiny 'Garden City' Site and Surroundings on Mount Sharp, Mars



Sorry to sound dumb
IS this true color?   Is this what i would see with my own eyes if i stood on Mars?   Its the color of the sky that amazes me the most.


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## editor (Jan 7, 2016)

ffsear said:


> Sorry to sound dumb
> IS this true color?   Is this what i would see with my own eyes if i stood on Mars?   Its the color of the sky that amazes me the most.


If you'd - ahem! - followed the included link you would have read this: 


> The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the rocks would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth


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## weltweit (Jan 7, 2016)

editor said:


> Here's a new photo of that well worn wheel.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm well if you won't fit tyres?


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## NoXion (Jan 12, 2016)

The wheels are made of aluminium aren't they? I know that it's a lightweight metal and that every gram counts for a space mission, but it still seems a poor decision in the circumstances. Surely there's some other metal or alloy that's lightweight but also more resistant to gouging and piercing? 

I had an aluminium bottle opener once, it was utter shit since bottle caps are usually made of steel and thus it quickly became completely useless as the edges of the bottle caps dug away at it.


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## teqniq (Jan 12, 2016)

Titanium, but perhaps that was thought too expensive.


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## Crispy (Jan 12, 2016)

teqniq said:


> Titanium, but perhaps that was thought too expensive.


There's no such thing when it comes to machines like this


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## teqniq (Jan 12, 2016)

Crispy said:


> There's no such thing when it comes to machines like this


Why didn't they use it then? Lighter than aluminium, stronger than steel.

e2a it would be a shame if the mission came to a premature end because they chose the wrong materials for the wheels. It's not like you can send Kwik Fit there to effect speedy repairs.


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## Crispy (Jan 12, 2016)

teqniq said:


> Why didn't they use it then? Lighter than aluminium, stronger than steel.


Not lighter than aluminium. Also more brittle and harder to machine.


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## teqniq (Jan 12, 2016)

Oh I thought it was lighter, and I know it's harder to machine but didn't know it's brittle which is an odd one because they've used it in the past for wing hinges on planes being used on aircraft carriers.

Oh well aluminium most probably the best choice then.


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## Crispy (Jan 12, 2016)

It gets brittle when it's cold. Alloys help I expect, but aluminium doesn't have this problem.


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## ffsear (Jan 12, 2016)

teqniq said:


> Oh I thought it was lighter, .




It is










on Mars


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## teqniq (Jan 12, 2016)

oh haha


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## 2hats (Jan 12, 2016)

NoXion said:


> more resistant to gouging and piercing?



They didn't anticipate quite this degree of gouging and piercing - the embedded, steadfast wind eroded pointy rocks mentioned above. Plans are afoot to beef up the wheels for the follow up 2020 rover.


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## editor (Apr 6, 2016)

Neat! Twister on Mars! Opportunity Rover Makes Tracks Ahead of Dust Devil (Photo)

Opportunity's has now covered 26.53 miles (42.69 km) on Mars!


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## Limejuice (Apr 6, 2016)

editor said:


> Opportunity's has now covered 26.53 miles (42.69 km) on Mars!



That's a nudge longer than a marathon.

I'm pretty sure Opportunity's covered the distance faster than I could, too.


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## editor (Apr 28, 2016)

Here's a 360 degrees panorama to immerse yourself in: 





> Explore this Mars panorama in 360-degrees by moving the view with your mouse or mobile device. This mid-afternoon, 360-degree panorama was acquired by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on April 4, 2016. The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the rocks and sand would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth.


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## NoXion (Apr 30, 2016)

To be honest I'd be more interested in seeing what the place looks like under daytime lighting conditions on Mars.


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## editor (Jan 31, 2018)

Look at this breathtaking panorama!


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## editor (Feb 21, 2018)

It's probably been posted before but this is an amazing image 








> This composite image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA's Curiosity rover. In the foreground ― about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the rover ― is a long ridge teeming with hematite, an iron oxide. Just beyond is an undulating plain rich in clay minerals. And just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals. The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago.


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## Supine (Feb 21, 2018)

Is it still going?


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## 2hats (Feb 21, 2018)

Curiosity’s original planned mission lifetime was 2 years, but has been operating on the surface of Mars for 5.5 years now - beyond the extended mission phase and into what is now called the ongoing mission, which might be another 5, 10 or even 15 years. The RTG power source could keep it going for anything up to another 55 years but it will most likely succumb to a mechanical failure of some description in the coming decade (the locomotive elements will probably fail first, leaving it as a static measurement platform).


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## editor (May 25, 2018)

Brilliant news. 






NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars Just Snagged Its 1st Drilled Samples Since 2016


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## editor (Jun 21, 2018)

There's one hell of a storm on Mars






Mars Dust Storm | Mars Exploration Program


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## editor (Sep 7, 2018)

Cracking selfie 



> NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has captured itself and its exotic, colorful Red Planet surroundings in a single glorious 360-degree shot.
> 
> Curiosity took the panoramic photo on Aug. 9, shortly after bagging up its latest drilled rock sample. The interactive image, which NASA released today (Sept. 6), shows the diverse terrain of Vera Rubin Ridge, which the car-size rover has been exploring for about a year. Dust darkens the sky above Curiosity and peppers the six-wheeled robot's deck.








Curiosity Rover Snaps Gorgeous Panoramic Selfie on Mars Mountain (Photo)


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## editor (Nov 10, 2018)

It's back to full health. 



NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars Is Rolling (and Drilling) Again


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## editor (Nov 29, 2018)

This is fantastic 

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2082


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## editor (Jan 28, 2019)

Amazing, beautiful science. 



> NASA's Curiosity rover has taken its last selfie on Vera Rubin Ridge and descended toward a clay region of Mount Sharp. The twisting ridge on Mars has been the rover's home for more than a year, providing scientists with new samples — and new questions — to puzzle over.
> 
> On Dec. 15, Curiosity drilled its 19th sample at a location on the ridge called Rock Hall. On Jan. 15, the spacecraft used its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the end of its robotic arm to take a series of 57 pictures, which were stitched together into this selfie. The "Rock Hall" drill hole is visible to the lower left of the rover; the scene is dustier than usual at this time of year due to a regional dust storm.
> 
> Curiosity has been exploring the ridge since September of 2017. It's now headed into the "clay-bearing unit," which sits in a trough just south of the ridge. Clay minerals in this unit may hold more clues about the ancient lakes that helped form the lower levels on Mount Sharp.


Curiosity Says Farewell to Mars' Vera Rubin Ridge


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Mar 11, 2019)

It's back!


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## 2hats (Jun 27, 2019)

Very high transient levels of methane have been detected on Mars, at Teal Ridge in Gale Crater, in the past few days by Curiosity's sample analysis tunable laser spectrometer (much higher than previously - 21 v 7 ppbv). It's not possible to say if these are geological or biological in origin but clearly there is some as yet unknown process at work, driving concentrations to change in a matter of hours/day or two.

More here.

BTW you can see a live stream from JPL of the next US rover Mars 2020 being assembled in the clean room here.


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## 8ball (Jun 27, 2019)

Bit of a shithole really, innit.


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## editor (Jun 15, 2020)

Wonderful stuff:


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