Categories: CuriosityMars Science LaboratoryVideos

Watch: Ultimate Mars Challenge

The PBS special “Ultimate Mars Challenge” that aired this week in the US is now available on YouTube. The production crew did a great job capturing the challenges of putting this mission together, and included scenes from building and testing the rover here on Earth to the nail-biting landing to even including some of the most recent images and discoveries from the mission.

Note: if the video above doesn’t play in your country, try going to the PBS NOVA website and watching it there. You can read more information about the episode here. As we mentioned previously, some of the mosaics and panoramas put together by Universe Today writer Ken Kremer, along with his imaging team partner Marco Di Lorenzo, were used in the PBS show. Congrats to Ken and Marco! Below is one of their images that was used:

Curiosity looks back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary premiering on Nov. 14. The colorized mosaic was stitched together from Navcam images. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/