Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity’s Landing Through the Eyes of One of Her 3,000 Builders

We all have seminal moments that mark our lives; some just are way more cool than others. Mark Rober designs spacecraft at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is just one of over 3,000 people who helped design, build, tweak, launch, navigate and land the Curiosity Rover on Mars. “I spent 7 years working NASA’s Curiosity Rover,” Rober said via Twitter. “I made this video to try to capture what it felt like to see her land.”

Seven years of his life came down to seven minutes of terror… or in Mark’s case, seven minutes of shivering.

Congrats, Mark, and to all your thousands of compatriots. Thanks for sharing the journey with the rest of us.

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Wheels Initial Rove in a Week on Heels of Science and Surgery Success

Image Caption: Curiosity’s Wheels Set to Rove soon Mars inside Gale Crater after ‘brain transplant’. This colorized mosaic shows Curiosity wheels, nuclear power source and pointy low gain antennea (LGA) in the foreground looking to the eroded northern rim of Gale Crater in the background. The mosaic was assembled from full resolution Navcam images snapped by Curiosity on Sol 2 on Aug. 8. Image stitching and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. see black & white version below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity’s weekend “Brain transplant” proceeded perfectly and she’ll be ready to drive across the floor of Gale Crater in about a week, said the projects mission managers at a NASA news briefing on Tuesday, Aug. 14. And the team can’t wait to get Curiosity’s 6 wheels mobile on the heels of a plethora of science successes after just a week on Mars.

Over the past 4 sols, or Martian days, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) successfully uploaded the new “R10” flight software that is required to carry out science operations on the Red Planet’s surface and transform the car-sized Curiosity from a landing vehicle into a fully fledged rover.

The step by step flight software transition onto both the primary and backup computers “went off without a hitch”, said mission manager Mike Watkins of JPL at the news briefing. “We are ‘Go’ to continue our checkout activities on Sol 9 (today).”
Watkins added that the electronic checkouts of all the additional science instruments tested so far, including the APXS, DAN and Chemin, has gone well. Actual use tests are still upcoming.

“With the new flight software, we’re now going to test the steering actuators on Sol 13, and then we are going to take it out for a test drive here probably around Sol 15,” said Watkins . “We’re going to do a short drive of a couple of meters and then maybe turn and back up.”

See our rover wheel mosaic above, backdropped by the rim of Gale Crater some 15 miles away.

Image Caption: Curiosity landed within Gale Crater near the center of the landing ellipse. The crater is approximately the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. This oblique view of Gale, and Mount Sharp in the center, is derived from a combination of elevation and imaging data from three Mars orbiters. The view is looking toward the southeast. Mount Sharp rises about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) above the floor of Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

Curiosity made an unprecedented pinpoint landing inside Gale Crater using the rocket powered “Sky Crane” descent stage just a week ago on Aug. 5/6 and the team is now eager to get the huge rover rolling across the Martian plains towards the foothills of Mount Sharp, about 6 miles (10 km) away as the Martian crow flies.

“We have a fully healthy rover and payload,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) deputy project scientist. “We couldn’t be happier with the success of the mission so far. We’ve never had a vista like this on another planet before.”

“In just a week we’ve done a lot. We’ve taken our 1st stunning panorama of Gale crater with focusable cameras, 1st ever high energy radiation measurement from the surface, the 1st ever movie of a spacecraft landing on another planet and the 1st ground images of an ancient Martian river channel.”

A high priority is to snap high resolution images of all of Mount Sharp, beyond just the base of the 3.4 mile (5.5 km) tall mountain photographed so far and to decide on the best traverse route to get there.

“We will target Mount Sharp directly with the mastcam cameras in the next few days,” said Watkins.

Climbing the layered mountain and exploring the embedded water related clays and sulfate minerals is the ultimate goal of Curiosity’s mission. Scientists are searching for evidence of habitats that could have supported microbial life.

Curiosity will search for the signs of life in the form of organic molecules by scooping up soil and rock samples and sifting them into analytical chemistry labs on the mobile rovers’ deck.

Vasavada said the team is exhaustively discussing which terrain to visit and analyze along the way that will deliver key science results. He expects it will take about a year or so before Curiosity arrives at the base of Mount Sharp and begins the ascent in between the breathtaking mesas and buttes lining the path upwards to the sedimentary materials.

Watkins and Vasavada told me they are confident they will find a safe path though the dunes and multistory tall buttes and mesas that line the approach to and base of Mount Sharp.

“Curiosity can traverse slopes of 20 degrees and drive over 1 meter sized rocks. The team has already mapped out 6 potential paths uphill from orbital imagery.”

“The science team and our rover drivers and really everybody are kind of itching to move at this point,” said Vasavada. “The science and operations teams are working together to evaluate a few different routes that will take us eventually to Mount Sharp, maybe with a few waypoints in between to look at some of this diversity that we see in these images. We’ll take 2 or 3 samples along the way. That’s a few weeks work each time.”

Caption: Destination Mount Sharp. This image from NASA’s Curiosity rover looks south of the rover’s landing site on Mars towards Mount Sharp. 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. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“We estimate we can drive something like a football field a day once we get going and test out all our driving capabilities. And if we’re talking about a hundred football fields away, in terms of 10 kilometers or so, to those lower slopes of Mount Sharp, that already is a hundred days plus.”

“It’s going to take a good part of a year to finally make it to these sediments on Mount Sharp and do science along the way,” Vasavada estimated.

The 1 ton mega rover Curiosity is the biggest and most complex robot ever dispatched to the surface of another planet and is outfitted with a payload of 10 state of the art science instruments weighing 15 times more than any prior roving vehicle.

Ken Kremer

Image Caption: Curiosity’s Wheels Set to Rove soon Mars inside Gale Crater. This mosaic shows Curiosity wheels, nuclear power source and pointy low gain antennea (LGA) in the foreground looking to the eroded northern rim of Gale Crater in the background. The mosaic was assembled from full resolution Navcam images snapped by Curiosity on Sol 2 on Aug. 8. Image stitching and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – www.kenkremer.com

Image Caption: Mosaic of Mount Sharp inside Curiosity’s Gale Crater landing site. Gravelly rocks are strewn in the foreground, dark dune field lies beyond and then the first detailed view of the layered buttes and mesas of the sedimentary rock of Mount Sharp. Topsoil at right was excavated by the ‘sky crane’ landing thrusters. Gale Crater in the hazy distance. This mosaic was stitched from three full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity on Sol 2 (Aug 8) and colorized based on Mastcam images from the 34 millimeter camera. Processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Posted on by John Williams

A 360-Degree ‘Street View’ From Mars

360-degree panoramic image of the Martian landscape surrounding NASA’s Curiosity. Credit: Andrew Bodrov

After seeing all the amazing imagery so far from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, I know everyone wants to go there and take in the visual treats of Gale Crater. With the help of a 360-degree panorama you can virtually explore Curiosity’s landing site; sort of like a Martian version of Google’s Street View.

Take a martian minute to explore the panorama at 360pano.eu.

Photographer Andrew Bodrov stitched together images from Curiosity’s navigation cameras to create the panorama. “After seeing some of the stitches of Curiosity’s images at NASA’s website, I decided to stitch the panorama myself,” Bodrov told Universe Today.

He uses PTGui panoramic stitching software from New House Internet Services BV (http://www.ptgui.com) to create the 360-degree view of the mountains and sky surrounding the car-sized rover that successfully landed on Mars on August 6th.

“NASA has still not published enough source material to assemble a complete panorama in color,” Bodrov says. He used a color filter to make the images more representable. He also added that the sky and sun in the panorama were added in Adobe Photoshop. He used the size of the Sun seen in this spectacular image of a Martian sunset from NASA’s Spirit rover taken in 2005 as a guide.

While Bodrov says the high-resolution images themselves are amazing, just seeing a picture of another world is more inspiring. “It’s very nice to see the achievements of humanity which allows you to see a picture of another world,” he said.

Bodrov says he has more than 12 years experience creating panoramas including an awesome panorama (complete with sound) for the Russian Federal Space Agency of a Soyuz/Progress launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in August 2011.

Image caption: Planet Baikonur courtesy of Andrew Bodrov

Posted on by Jason Major

What Curiosity Looks Like From 200 Kilometers Up

Here’s a look down at Curiosity from the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, orbiting approximately  200 km (125 miles) above the surface of Mars. This new image, released today, shows the rover inside Gale Crater surrounded by a skirt of blue-tinted material, including several bright radiating marks –the  result of the descent stage rockets clearing layers of dust from the surface.

In this exaggerated-color view the blue indicates material of a different texture and composition than the surrounding area. HiRISE captures images in visible light wavelengths as well as near-infrared, which we can’t see. To us, the blue material would look grey.

North is up, and Curiosity’s ultimate exploration target, Gale Crater’s central peak, Mount Sharp, is off frame to the lower right.

Click here for a full-size version of the HiRISE image scan, showing the scene above plus some areas further north and south — including portions of the dark dune fields visible in recent images from Curiosity.

It’s nice to know that Curiosity has friends in high places!

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

 

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity Getting Ready to Rove

Here’s a look at what the Curiosity team has planned for the rover this week. Team member Jessica Samuels provides an update on developments and status of the mission now that it’s preparing to explore Gale Crater. 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. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks’ elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover’s analytical laboratory instruments.
Continue reading “Curiosity Getting Ready to Rove”

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

President Obama Calls with Congratulations for Mars Science Laboratory Team

US President Barack Obama called up the Mars Science Laboratory team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory today, August 13, congratulating them on the perfect landing of the Curiosity rover one week ago today.

“What you did on Mars was incredibly impressive,” the President said, “with those 76 pyrotechnics going on in perfect succession, the 500,000 lines of code working exactly the way you guys had ordered them, it’s really mind boggling what you’ve been able to accomplish. Being able to get that whole landing sequence to work the way you did, it’s a testimony to your team.”

Obama specifically congratulated Charles Elachi, the head of JPL, the entry, descent and landing lead, Adam Steltzner for the audacious Sky Crane system.

“What you accomplished embodied the American spirit and your passion and your commitment is making a difference and your hard work is now paying dividends, because our expectation is that Curiosity is going to be telling us things that we did not know before and laying the groundwork for an even more audacious undertaking in the future, and that’s a human mission to the Red Planet.”

Obama joked about letting him know right away if they find any Martians, and perhaps getting a Mohawk, just like Bobak Ferdowsi, a systems engineer in JPL’s mission control who became an unexpected “star of the show” on Sunday night’s webcast, for his American flag-themed stars and stripes Mohawk haircut.

“That’s going to be the new fashion at JPL,” Elachi replied.

“It does sound like NASA’s come a long way from the white shirts, black-rimmed glasses and the pocket protectors,” the President joked. “You guys are a little cooler than you used to be.”

Obama said his administration is putting a big focus on improving science, technology, engineering and math education; however, NASA and other science arms of the government are all facing massive cuts. Perhaps MSL has captured the President’s attention enough to, maybe, change his focus. Several people have sent messages to Obama via Twitter, such as this one:

A view of the crowd gathered at Times Square in New York City to watch the landing of Curiosity on Mars. Credit: @CSMuncyPhoto

Then Obama said, “I’m going to give you guys a personal commitment to protect these critical investments in science and technology, I thank you for devoting your lives to this cause and if, in fact, you do make contact with Martians, please let me know right away. I’ve got a lot of other things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go to the top of the list. Even if they’re just microbes, it will be pretty exciting.”

Obama said the incredible landing of Curiosity is the kind of thing that inspires kids across the country. “They are telling their moms and dads they want to be part of a Mars mission, maby even the first person to walk on Mars. That kind of inspiration is a by-product of the work that you have done.”

“You guys have done an outstanding job, you’ve made us all proud… you are examples of American know-how and ingenuity and we can’t wait to start hearing back from Curiosity and finding on what is going on.”

Posted on by Jason Major

Mystery Blur in Mars Image Explained

When Curiosity executed a perfect six-wheel landing on Mars on the morning of August 6 to the excitement of millions worldwide — not to mention quite a few engineers and scientists at JPL — it immediately began relaying images back to Earth. Although the initial views were low-resolution and taken through dusty lens covers, features of the local landscape around the rover could be discerned… distant hills, a pebbly surface, the rise of Gale Crater’s central peak — and a curious dark blur on the horizon that wasn’t visible in later images.

What could it have been? Another bit of lens dust? An image artifact? A piece of ancient Martian architecture that NASA demanded be erased from the image? As it turns out, it was most likely something even cooler (or at least real): the result of Curiosity’s descent stage crash-landing into the Martian surface.

Seen in an image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, the remnants of Curiosity’s descent to Mars are scattered around the landing site. The heat shield, parachute, back shell — and undeniably the star player of Curiosity’s EDL sequence, the descent stage and sky crane — all landed in relatively close proximity to where the rover touched down. As it turned out, Curiosity’s’s rear Hazcam happened to be aimed right where the sky crane landed after it severed Curiosity’s bridles and rocketed safely away — just as it had been shown in the landing animation.

See an infographic on Curiosity’s EDL timeline here.

Seen in the first images captured by Curiosity’s rear Hazcams just minutes after touchdown — but not in higher-resolution images acquired later — the dark blur is now thought to be a plume of dust and soil kicked up by the sky crane’s impact.

“We know that the cloud was real because we saw it in both the left and right rear Hazcams, so it wasn’t just a smudge on the lens cover or anything like that… and then 45 minutes later it was gone,” said Steven Sell, Deputy Operations for Entry, Descent and Landing at JPL, during an interview with Universe Today on Friday.

“When we were putting together the sequence of images of what would happen after touchdown, we specifically put in the Hazcam shots as soon as we could on the off chance that we would see something,” Sell said. “It was just one of those things where we had some choices we could make, and we said if we put these really close to landing maybe we’ll actually see part of the descent stage.”

Although capturing the sky crane or other part of the descent stage on camera was an intriguing idea, it wasn’t any particular goal of the mission.

“We know that the cloud was real because we saw it in both the left and right rear Hazcams, so it wasn’t just a smudge on the lens cover or anything like that.”

– Steven Sell, Deputy Operations for Entry, Descent and Landing at JPL in Pasadena, CA

“We literally weren’t even thinking about it,” Sell said. “It’s a total bonus that we were able to capture that.”

Unfortunately, the plume only appears in the initial Hazcam shots, which were taken through lens covers coated with dust from landing. It wasn’t until nearly an hour later that the covers were removed and clearer images were captured, and by then the plume was gone. Plus the Hazcams themselves are low-resolution by design — they’re more for navigation than landscape photography.

“Those cameras are not intended for doing that kind of science, or even any science at all,” said Sell. “They’re strictly engineering cameras.”

It’s been said that the best camera is the one you have with you, and in this case Curiosity’s best camera happened to be aimed in the right place at the right time. Plus the sky crane just so happened to land in view of the cameras that got turned on first, which wasn’t a guarantee.

“The descent stage had two possible directions to go: it could have gone forward or backward,” Sell explained. “The way it decides which way to go is whichever direction would take it more north. We knew that the science target is toward the south — the scientists want to study the mountain — and so we didn’t want to throw the descent stage toward the mountain.

Read: Curiosity’s First 360-Degree Color Panorama

“The good news is that the forward Hazcams were at a lower temperature upon landing, we knew they were going to be colder,” Sell said. “The cameras have to reach a certain temperature before they can take a picture, so we knew the rear Hazcams were going to get the picture first, and so the fact that the thing flew to the rear was another coincidence.”

About the same mass as the rover itself, the sky crane weighed about 800 kg (1700 lbs) at the time of impact  — including 100 kg of fuel — and hit going 100 mph. That’s going to kick up a good-sized plume (although exactly how large has yet to be determined.)

“It was one hell of an impact,” Sell said.

You can watch Steve Sell describe this and other data from the first few days of the MSL mission in the press conference held at JPL on Friday, August 10 below, and follow Sell on his Twitter feed here.


Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech. HiRISE image NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Posted on by Jason Major

Curiosity’s First 360-Degree Color Panorama

Doesn’t Gale Crater look lovely this time of year? This is the first 360-degree panorama of color images taken by Curiosity’s color Mast Camera. The individual images used in this first panorama may only have been thumbnail-sized, but the effect is no less stunning.

(Click the image to panoramify.)

 The images were acquired on August 9 EDT. Although taken during late afternoon at Gale crater, the individual images still had to be brightened as Mars only receives half the amount of sunlight that Earth does.

Full-size 1200×1200 pixel images will be available at a later date.

The two grey patches in the foreground at left and right are the result of Curiosty’s sky crane rockets blasting the Martian surface. Scientists will be investigating these areas as they expose material that was previously hidden beneath Mars’ red dust.

The base of Gale Crater’s 3.4-mile (5.5 km) high central peak, named Mt. Sharp in honor of planetary science pioneer Robert P. Sharp, can be seen in the distance at center. (Check out an oblique view of a portion of Mt. Sharp acquired by HiRISE camera here.)

You can play with an interactive 360-degree panorama at the NASATech website, put together by John O’Connor, and if you look closely, visible is the full JPL logo on the middle right wheel — in Morse Code!

As always, you can find more news from the MSL mission here.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity and the Mojave Desert of Mars – Panorama from Gale Crater

Image Caption: Curiosity and the Mojave Desert of Mars at Gale Crater North Rim, False Color Mosaic. This false color panoramic mosaic shows Curiosity in the foreground looking to the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the background. Visible at left is a portion of the RTG nuclear power source, low gain antenna pointing up, then the deployed High Gain antenna and other components of the rover deck. This mosaic was assembled from the three new full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity overnight and snapped on Sol 2 on Aug. 8. Image stitching by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Topsoil at right foreground has been excavated by the descent landing thrusters to expose what the team believes is bedrock. See black and white version below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger calls this place “The Mojave Desert” of Mars– that’s the sweet spot where NASA’s huge new Curiosity rover landed only 3 Sols, or days ago, and looks so “Earth-like”.

See above and below our new 3 frame panoramic mosaic showing Curiosity with a dramatic “Mojave Desert” backdrop – in false color and black and white – assembled from new pictures received overnight at JPL.

With her camera mast erected, Curiosity is beginning to beam back a flood of spectacular images and giving us the first detailed view of her new surroundings from her touchdown point inside Gale Crater on Mars beside a 3.4 mile (5.5 km) high layered mountain nicknamed Mount Sharp.

Overnight, Curiosity sent back many more full frame pictures from her Navcam navigation camera, including exquisite high resolution views of herself with the eroded rim of Gale Crater over her shoulder.

At Wednesday’s briefing, Grotzinger has ecstatic with the initial set of high resolution images showing Gale crater in the distance, saying;

“The thing that really struck the science team about this image, you would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a fast one on you and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and took a picture.

“That’s the part of the rim that’s lowest in elevation, facing the northern lowlands of Mars.”

“The thing that’s amazing about this is to a certain extent the first impression you get is how earth-like this seems, looking at that landscape.”

The terrain is strewn with small pebbles that the team hypothesizes may stem from a nearby alluvial fan through which liquid water flowed long ago and is exactly why they chose Gale Crater as Curiosity’s landing site.

“The sedimentary materials, all those materials are derived from erosion of those mountains there, that’s the source region for this material,” Grotzinger said. “It’s really kind of fantastic.”

The first 360 color panorama from the Mastcam cameras are expected soon.

Ken Kremer

Image Caption: Curiosity and the Mojave Desert of Mars at Gale Crater North Rim. This false color panoramic mosaic shows Curiosity in the foreground looking to the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the background. Visible at left is a portion of the RTG nuclear power source, low gain antenna pointing up, then the deployed High Gain antenna and other components of the rover deck. This mosaic was assembled from the three new full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity overnight. Processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Topsoil at right foreground has been excavated by the descent landing thrusters to expose what the team believes is bedrock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Image Caption: Looking to Martian bedrock and Gale Crater North Rim, False Color- This two frame mosaic was assembled from the first two full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity on Sol 2 (Aug 8) and enhanced and colorized to bring out further details. Image sticthing and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Topsoil in the foreground has been excavated by the Sky crane descent landing thrusters to expose what the team believes is bedrock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – www.kenkremer.com

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity raises Mast and snaps 1st Self Portrait and 1st 360 Panorama

Image Caption: Rover’s Self Portrait -This Picasso-like self portrait of NASA’s Curiosity rover was taken by its Navigation cameras, located on the now-upright mast. The camera snapped pictures 360-degrees around the rover, while pointing down at the rover deck, up and straight ahead. Those images are shown here in a polar projection. Most of the tiles are thumbnails, or small copies of the full-resolution images that have not been sent back to Earth yet. Two of the tiles are full-resolution. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
See below the 1st 360 degree panorama from Curiosity and an enhanced Sol 2 mosaic of the full resolution view of the north rim of Gale Crater by this author

The rover Curiosity continues her marathon run of milestone achievements – snapping her 1st self portrait and 1st 360 degree panorama since touchdown inside Gale Crater barely over 2 sols, or Martian days ago.

To take all these new images, Curiosity used a new camera, the just-activated higher resolution navigation cameras (Navcam) positioned on the mast. Several of the new images provide the best taste yet of the stupendous vistas coming soon. See our enhanced Sol 2 mosaic below.

The 3.6 foot-tall (1.1 meter) camera mast on the rover deck was just raised and activated earlier today, Wednesday, Aug. 8.

The mast deployment is absolutely crucial to Curiosity’s science mission. It is also loaded with the high resolution MastCam cameras and the ChemCam instrument with the laser rock zapper.

Most of the images Navcam images beamed back today were lower-resolution thumbnails. But 2 high-resolution Navcams from the panorama and the self portrait were also downlinked and provide the clearest view yet of the breathtaking terrain surrounding Curiosity in every direction.

“The full frame navcams show the north rim of Gale Crater,” said Justin Maki, MSL navcam lead, at a briefing today at JPL. “The Navcam’s are identical to the MER Navcam’s.”

The hi res images also show how the descent thruster excavated the topsoil like Phoenix.

Image Caption: Curiosity Looks Away from the Sun – This is the first 360-degree panoramic view from NASA’s Curiosity rover, taken with the Navigation cameras. Most of the tiles are thumbnails, or small copies of the full-resolution images that have not been sent back to Earth yet. Two of the tiles near the center are full-resolution. Mount Sharp is to the right, and the north Gale Crater rim can be seen at center. The rover’s body is in the foreground, with the shadow of its head, or mast, poking up to the right. These images were acquired at 3:30 pm on Mars, or the night of Aug. 7 PDT (early morning Aug. 8 EDT). Thumbnails are 64 by 64 pixels in size; and full-resolution images are 1024 by 1024 pixels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Caption: Looking to Martian bedrock and Gale Carter North Rim, Enhanced Mosaic- This mosaic was assembled from the first two full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity on Sol 2 (Aug 8) and enhanced to bring out further details. Processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Topsoil in the foreground has been excavated by the descent landing thrusters to expose what the team believes is bedrock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco di Lorenzo

“These Navcam images indicate that our powered descent stage did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing freebie,” said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The thrust from the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5-meter] trench in the surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom. Its depth below the surface is valuable data we can use going forward.”

Gale Crater is unlike anything we’ve seen before on Mars.

It also distinctly reminded Grotzinger of Earth and looked to him like the rover set down in the Mojave desert. “The thing that’s amazing about this is to a certain extent the first impression you get is how earth-like this seems, looking at that landscape.”

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. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks’ elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover’s analytical laboratory instruments.

So far everything is going very well with Curiosity’s mechanical and instrument checkout. And there is even more power than expected from the RTG nuclear power source.

“We have more power than we expected and that’s going to be fantastic for being able to keep the rover awake longer,” said Mission manager Jennifer Trosper of JPL.

Ken Kremer

Looking to Martian bedrock and Gale Carter North Rim, Enhanced Mosaic with False Color- This mosaic was assembled from the first two full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity on Sol 2 (Aug 8) and enhanced and colorized to bring out further details. Processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Topsoil in the foreground has been excavated by the descent landing thrusters to expose what the team believes is bedrock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco di Lorenzo