[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:34:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201208222134.q7MLYhms006981_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-256

NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 22, 2012

[Images]
    * This 360-degree panorama shows evidence of a successful first test
      drive for NASA's Curiosity rover <#1>
    * This image shows laser plasmas in a test lab at Los Alamos
      National Laboratory, N.M., under typical atmospheric pressures on
      Earth and Mars <#2>
    * This is the first laser spectrum from the Chemistry and Camera
      (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover, sent back from
      Mars on August 19, 2012 <#3>
    * This photo mosaic shows the scour mark, dubbed Goulburn, left by
      the thrusters on the sky crane that helped lower NASA's Curiosity
      rover to the Red Planet <#4>
    * Images taken before and after NASA's Curiosity rover shot its
      laser 50 times are shown here <#5>
    * This overhead view shows evidence of a successful first test drive
      for NASA's Curiosity rover <#6>

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun driving from
its landing site, which scientists announced today they have named for
the late author Ray Bradbury.

Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive
combined forward, turn and reverse segments. This placed the rover
roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago.

NASA has approved the Curiosity science team's choice to name the
landing ground for the influential author, who was born 92 years ago
today and died this year. The location where Curiosity touched down is
now called Bradbury Landing.

"This was not a difficult choice for the science team," said Michael
Meyer, NASA program scientist for Curiosity. "Many of us and millions of
other readers were inspired in our lives by stories Ray Bradbury wrote
to dream of the possibility of life on Mars."

Today's drive confirmed the health of Curiosity's mobility system and
produced the rover's first wheel tracks on Mars, documented in images
taken after the drive. During a news conference today at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the mission's lead rover
driver, Matt Heverly, showed an animation derived from visualization
software used for planning the first drive.

"We have a fully functioning mobility system with lots of amazing
exploration ahead," Heverly said.

Curiosity will spend several more days of working beside Bradbury
Landing, performing instrument checks and studying the surroundings,
before embarking toward its first driving destination approximately
1,300 feet (400 meters) to the east-southeast.

"Curiosity is a much more complex vehicle than earlier Mars rovers. The
testing and characterization activities during the initial weeks of the
mission lay important groundwork for operating our precious national
resource with appropriate care," said Curiosity Project Manager Pete
Theisinger of JPL. "Sixteen days in, we are making excellent progress."

The science team has begun pointing instruments on the rover's mast for
investigating specific targets of interest near and far. The Chemistry
and Camera (ChemCam) instrument used a laser and spectrometers this week
to examine the composition of rocks exposed when the spacecraft's
landing engines blew away several inches of overlying material.

The instrument's principal investigator, Roger Weins of Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico, reported that measurements made on
the rocks in this scoured-out feature called Goulburn suggest a basaltic
composition. "These may be pieces of basalt within a sedimentary
deposit," Weins said.

Curiosity began a two-year prime mission on Mars when the Mars Science
Laboratory spacecraft delivered the car-size rover to its landing target
inside Gale Crater on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The mission will use 10
science instruments on the rover to assess whether the area has ever
offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

In a career spanning more than 70 years, Ray Bradbury inspired
generations of readers to dream, think and create. A prolific author of
hundreds of short stories and nearly 50 books, as well as numerous
poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays and screenplays, Bradbury was
one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

His groundbreaking works include "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian
Chronicles," "The Illustrated Man," "Dandelion Wine," and "Something
Wicked This Way Comes." He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's
classic film adaptation of "Moby Dick," and was nominated for an Academy
Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury
Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of "The Halloween Tree."

JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and
assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena.

More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl
and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-6278/818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2012-256
Received on Wed 22 Aug 2012 05:34:42 PM PDT


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