[meteorite-list] Orbiter Views NASA's New Mars Rover in Color

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:14:33 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201208142314.q7ENEXDG028582_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-243

Orbiter Views NASA's New Mars Rover in Color
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 14, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- The first color image taken from orbit showing
NASA's rover Curiosity on Mars includes details of the layered bedrock
on the floor of Gale Crater that the rover is beginning to investigate.

Operators of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter added the color view to
earlier observations of Curiosity descending on its parachute, and one
day after landing.

"The rover appears as double bright spot plus shadows from this
perspective, looking at its shadowed side, set in the middle of the
blast pattern from the descent stage," said HiRISE Principal
Investigator Alfred McEwen, of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "This
image was acquired from an angle looking 30 degrees westward of straight
down. We plan to get one in a few days looking more directly down,
showing the rover in more detail and completing a stereo pair."

Meanwhile, Curiosity has finished a four-day process transitioning both
of its redundant main computers to flight software for driving and using
tools on the rover's arm. During the latter part of the Mars Science
Laboratory spacecraft's 36-week flight to Mars and its complicated
descent to deliver Curiosity to the Martian surface on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug.
6, EDT and Universal Time), the rover's computers used a version of
flight software with many capabilities no longer needed. The new version
expands capabilities for work the rover will do now that it is on Mars.

"We have successfully completed the brain transplant," said Curiosity
Mission Manager Mike Watkins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. "Now we are moving on to a new phase of functional
checkouts of the science instruments and preparations for a short test
drive."

The first drive, possibly within a week or so, will likely include short
forward and reverse segments and a turn. Curiosity has a separate drive
motor on each of its six wheels and steering motors on the four corner
wheels. Preparation and testing of the motor controllers will precede
the first drive.

After the test drive, the planning schedule has an "intermission" before
a second testing phase focused on use of the rover's robotic arm. For
the intermission, the 400-member science team will have the opportunity
to pick a location for Curiosity to drive to before the arm-testing weeks.

"It's fair to say that the scientists, not to mention the rover drivers,
are itching to move," said JPL's Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project
scientist for Curiosity.

Researchers have been examining images from Curiosity's cameras and
HiRISE to identify potential targets to investigate near the rover and
on the visible slope of the nearby three-mile-high mound informally
named Mount Sharp.

"The science and operations teams are evaluating several potential
routes that would take us to Mount Sharp, with perhaps a few waypoints
to inspect some of the different terrains we've identified as we map the
landing area," Vasavada said. "As we have reported many times before,
it's going to take us a good part of our first year to make it to the
layered sediments on Mount Sharp."

During a prime mission of nearly two years, researchers will use
Curiosity to investigate whether the selected area of Mars has ever
offered chemical ingredients for life and other environmental conditions
favorable for supporting microbial life. Curiosity carries 10 science
instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads
on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five
times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The landing site inside Gale
Crater places the rover within driving distance of layers of Mount
Sharp. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals
in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Science Laboratory and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL
designed and built Curiosity. HiRISE is operated by the University of
Arizona in Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in
Denver built the orbiter.

For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/mro . To see thousands of images from HiRISE, visit
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu .

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Follow Curiosity's mission on Facebook and Twitter at
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole at nasa.gov

2012-243
Received on Tue 14 Aug 2012 07:14:33 PM PDT