Top Stories: August 2012

Friday, August 31, 2012

NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins Begin Extended Mission Science

Thursday, August 30, 2012

NASA's Jupiter-Bound Juno Changes its Orbit

NASA's Dawn Prepares for Trek Toward Dwarf Planet

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Saturn and its Largest Moon Reflect Their True Colors

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Joe Mason 720-974-5859
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
media@ciclops.org

Image advisory: 2012-267 Aug. 29, 2012

Saturn and its Largest Moon Reflect Their True Colors

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-267&cid=release_2012-267

PASADENA, Calif. -- Posing for portraits for NASA's Cassini spacecraft, Saturn and its
largest moon, Titan, show spectacular colors in a quartet of images being released today.
One image captures the changing hues of Saturn's northern and southern hemispheres as
they pass from one season to the next.

The images can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and
http://ciclops.org .

A wide-angle view in today's package captures Titan passing in front of Saturn, as well
as the planet's changing colors. Upon Cassini's arrival at Saturn eight years ago, Saturn's
northern winter hemisphere was an azure blue. Now that winter is encroaching on the
planet's southern hemisphere and summer on the north, the color scheme is reversing:
blue is tinting the southern atmosphere and is fading from the north.

The other three images depict the newly discovered south polar vortex in the atmosphere
of Titan, reported recently by Cassini scientists. Cassini's visible-light cameras have seen
a concentration of yellowish haze in the detached haze layer at the south pole of Titan
since at least March 27. Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer spotted the
massing of clouds around the south pole as early as May 22 in infrared wavelengths.
After a June 27 flyby of the moon, Cassini released a dramatic image and movie showing
the vortex rotating faster than the moon's rotation period. The four images being released
today were acquired in May, June and July of 2012.

Some of these views, such as those of the polar vortex, are only possible because
Cassini's newly inclined -- or tilted -- orbits allow more direct viewing of the polar
regions of Saturn and its moons.

Scientists are looking forward to seeing more of the same -- new phenomena like Titan's
south polar vortex and changes wrought by the passage of time and seasons -- during the
remainder of Cassini's mission.

"Cassini has been in orbit now for the last eight years, and despite the fact that we can't
know exactly what the next five years will show us, we can be certain that whatever it is
will be wondrous," said Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead based at the Space Science
Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Launched in 1997, Cassini went into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. It is in its
second mission extension, known as the Solstice Mission, and one of its main goals is to
analyze seasonal changes in the Saturn system.

"It is so fantastic to experience, through the instruments of Cassini, seasonal changes in
the Saturn system," said Amanda Hendrix, deputy project scientist, based at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Some of the changes we see in the data are
completely unexpected, while some occur like clockwork on a seasonal timescale. It's an
exciting time to be at Saturn."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were
designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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NASA's WISE Survey Uncovers Millions of Black Holes

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-265 Aug. 29, 2012

NASA's WISE Survey Uncovers Millions of Black Holes

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-265&cid=release_2012-265

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has led to a
bonanza of newfound supermassive black holes and extreme galaxies called hot DOGs, or dust-
obscured galaxies.

Images from the telescope have revealed millions of dusty black hole candidates across the universe
and about 1,000 even dustier objects thought to be among the brightest galaxies ever found. These
powerful galaxies, which burn brightly with infrared light, are nicknamed hot DOGs.

"WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects," said Hashima Hasan, WISE program scientist at
NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We've found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the
coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of
dust."

WISE scanned the whole sky twice in infrared light, completing its survey in early 2011. Like night-
vision goggles probing the dark, the telescope captured millions of images of the sky. All the data
from the mission have been released publicly, allowing astronomers to dig in and make new
discoveries.

The latest findings are helping astronomers better understand how galaxies and the behemoth black
holes at their centers grow and evolve together. For example, the giant black hole at the center of our
Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, has 4 million times the mass of our sun and has gone
through periodic feeding frenzies where material falls towards the black hole, heats up and irradiates
its surroundings. Bigger central black holes, up to a billion times the mass of our sun, may even shut
down star formation in galaxies.

In one study, astronomers used WISE to identify about 2.5 million actively feeding supermassive
black holes across the full sky, stretching back to distances more than 10 billion light-years away.
About two-thirds of these objects never had been detected before because dust blocks their visible
light. WISE easily sees these monsters because their powerful, accreting black holes warm the dust,
causing it to glow in infrared light.

"We've got the black holes cornered," said Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., lead author of the WISE black hole study and project scientist for another NASA
black-hole mission, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). "WISE is finding them
across the full sky, while NuSTAR is giving us an entirely new look at their high-energy X-ray light
and learning what makes them tick."

In two other WISE papers, researchers report finding what are among the brightest galaxies known,
one of the main goals of the mission. So far, they have identified about 1,000 candidates.

These extreme objects can pour out more than 100 trillion times as much light as our sun. They are so
dusty, however, that they appear only in the longest wavelengths of infrared light captured by WISE.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope followed up on the discoveries in more detail and helped show that,
in addition to hosting supermassive black holes feverishly snacking on gas and dust, these DOGs are
busy churning out new stars.

"These dusty, cataclysmically forming galaxies are so rare WISE had to scan the entire sky to find
them," said Peter Eisenhardt, lead author of the paper on the first of these bright, dusty galaxies, and
project scientist for WISE at JPL. "We are also seeing evidence that these record setters may have
formed their black holes before the bulk of their stars. The 'eggs' may have come before the
'chickens.'"

More than 100 of these objects, located about 10 billion light-years away, have been confirmed using
the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, as well as the Gemini Observatory in Chile,
Palomar's 200-inch Hale telescope near San Diego, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory
near Tucson, Ariz.

The WISE observations, combined with data at even longer infrared wavelengths from Caltech's
Submillimeter Observatory atop Mauna Kea, revealed that these extreme galaxies are more than twice
as hot as other infrared-bright galaxies. One theory is their dust is being heated by an extremely
powerful burst of activity from the supermassive black hole.

"We may be seeing a new, rare phase in the evolution of galaxies," said Jingwen Wu of JPL, lead
author of the study on the submillimeter observations. All three papers are being published in the
Astrophysical Journal.

The three technical journal articles, including PDFs, can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0811,
http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.5517 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.5518 .

JPL manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The
principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under
NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The
science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was
built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data
processing and archiving take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise , http://www.nasa.gov/wise, http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and
http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Curiosity Rover Plays First Song Transmitted from Another Planet

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Ann Marie Trotta 202-358-1601
NASA Headquarters, Washington
ann.marie.trotta@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-262 Aug. 28, 2012

Curiosity Rover Plays First Song Transmitted from Another Planet

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-262&cid=release_2012-262

PASADENA, Calif. -- For the first time in history, a recorded song has been beamed back to Earth from another planet. Students, special guests and news media gathered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., today to hear "Reach for the Stars" by musician will.i.am after it was transmitted from the surface of Mars by the Curiosity rover.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addressed the crowd in a video message encouraging students to study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). "Mars has always fascinated us, and the things Curiosity tells us about it will help us learn about whether or not life was possible there," Bolden said. "And what future human explorers can expect. will.i.am has provided the first song on our playlist of Mars exploration."

In opening remarks, NASA Associate Administrator for Education and space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin said, "I can think of no greater way to honor NASA pioneer Neil Armstrong's life and legacy than to inspire today's students to follow his path. That first footprint that Neil placed on the lunar surface left an indelible mark in history. Perhaps one of our students here today or watching on NASA Television will be the first to set foot on the surface of Mars and continue humanity's quest to explore."

Musician and entrepreneur will.i.am shared his thoughts about "Reach for the Stars" becoming the first interplanetary song and an anthem for NASA education. The entertainer is a well-known advocate of science and technology education. He said, "Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology through STEAM education. I know my purpose is to inspire young people, because they will keep inspiring me back."

After completing a journey of more than 700 million miles from Earth to Mars and back, the opening orchestral strains of "Reach for the Stars" filled the auditorium. The event added to continuing worldwide interest in Curiosity's mission.

NASA engineers spoke to attendees about the Curiosity mission, and the systems engineering and orbital mechanics involved in getting the song file back from Mars. Students had the opportunity to ask questions of all program participants. Earlier in the day, students received a guided tour of JPL to view rover models and learn about STEM career options.

During the event, will.i.am's i.am angel Foundation and Discovery Education announced a $10 million classroom education initiative that will reach 25 million students annually, including many from underserved communities. Focused on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) educational themes, the Discovery Education initiative will incorporate NASA content and space exploration themes as part of the curriculum.

The event will be replayed on NASA Television. For schedule information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

For information about NASA's education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education .

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

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Monday, August 27, 2012

NASA Rover Returns Voice and Telephoto Views From Martian Surface

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-260 Aug. 27, 2012

NASA Rover Returns Voice and Telephoto Views From Martian Surface

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-260&cid=release_2012-260

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back.

In spoken words radioed to the rover on Mars and back to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden noted the difficulty of landing a rover on Mars, congratulated NASA employees and the agency's commercial and government partners on the successful landing of Curiosity earlier this month, and said curiosity is what drives humans to explore.

"The knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future," Bolden said in the recorded message.

The voice playback was released along with new telephoto camera views of the varied Martian landscape during a news conference today at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"With this voice, another small step is taken in extending human presence beyond Earth, and the experience of exploring remote worlds is brought a little closer to us all," said Dave Lavery, NASA Curiosity program executive. "As Curiosity continues its mission, we hope these words will be an inspiration to someone alive today who will become the first to stand upon the surface of Mars. And like the great Neil Armstrong, they will speak aloud of that next giant leap in human exploration."

The telephoto images beamed back to Earth show a scene of eroded knobs and gulches on a mountainside, with geological layering clearly exposed. The new views were taken by the 100-millimeter telephoto lens and the 34-milllimeter wide angle lens of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. Mastcam has photographed the lower slope of the nearby mountain called Mount Sharp.

"This is an area on Mount Sharp where Curiosity will go," said Mastcam principal investigator Michael Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. "Those layers are our ultimate objective. The dark dune field is between us and those layers. In front of the dark sand you see redder sand, with a different composition suggested by its different color. The rocks in the foreground show diversity -- some rounded, some angular, with different histories. This is a very rich geological site to look at and eventually to drive through."

A drive early Monday placed Curiosity directly over a patch where one of the spacecraft's landing engines scoured away a few inches of gravelly soil and exposed underlying rock. Researchers plan to use a neutron-shooting instrument on the rover to check for water molecules bound into minerals at this partially excavated target.

During the news conference, the rover team reported the results of a test on Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, which can measure the composition of samples of atmosphere, powdered rock or soil. The amount of air from Earth's atmosphere remaining in the instrument after Curiosity's launch was more than expected, so a difference in pressure on either side of tiny pumps led SAM operators to stop pumping out the remaining Earth air as a precaution. The pumps subsequently worked, and a chemical analysis was completed on a sample of Earth air.

"As a test of the instrument, the results are beautiful confirmation of the sensitivities for identifying the gases present," said SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We're happy with this test and we're looking forward to the next run in a few days when we can get Mars data."

Curiosity already is returning more data from the Martian surface than have all of NASA's earlier rovers combined.

"We have an international network of telecommunications relay orbiters bringing data back from Curiosity," said JPL's Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "Curiosity is boosting its data return by using a new capability for adjusting its transmission rate."

Curiosity is 3 weeks into a two-year prime mission on Mars. It will use 10 science instruments to assess whether the selected study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's DSN is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions.

The full text of the administrator's message, as well as a video clip and audio clip with his recorded voice, are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/bolden20120827.html .

To view the new images, and for more information about the Curiosity rover, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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Friday, August 24, 2012

NASA Announces Aug. 27 Mars News Conference

Thursday, August 23, 2012

NASA Event to Discuss Black Holes and Extreme Objects

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

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

News release: 2012-256 Aug. 22, 2012

NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-256&cid=release_2012-256

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 .

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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

NASA to Hold Televised Curiosity Rover Media Briefing Aug. 22

NASA's Curiosity Studies Mars Surroundings, Nears Drive

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

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

News release: 2012-254 Aug. 21, 2012

NASA's Curiosity Studies Mars Surroundings, Nears Drive

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-254&cid=release_2012-254

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been investigating the Martian weather around it and the soil beneath it, as its controllers prepare for the car-size vehicle's first drive on Mars.

The rover's weather station, provided by Spain, checks air temperature, ground temperature, air pressure, wind and other variables every hour at the landing site in Gale Crater. On a typical Martian day, or "sol," based on measurements so far in the two-week old mission, air temperatures swing from 28 degrees to minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 to minus 75 Celsius). Ground temperatures change even more between afternoon and pre-dawn morning, from 37 degrees to minus 132 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to minus 91 Celsius).

"We will learn about changes from day to day and season to season," said Javier Gómez-Elvira of the Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain, principal investigator for the suite of weather sensors called the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS).

Within a week or so, daily Mars weather reports from Curiosity will become available at: http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html or http://bit.ly/RzQe6p .

One of the two sets of REMS wind sensors is not providing data. "One possibility is that pebbles lofted during the landing hit the delicate circuit boards on one of the two REMS booms," said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We will have to be more clever about using the remaining wind sensor to get wind speed and direction."

An instrument provided by Russia is checking for water bound into minerals in the top three feet (one meter) of soil beneath the rover. It employs a technology that is used in oil prospecting on Earth, but had never before been sent to another planet.

"Curiosity has begun shooting neutrons into the ground," said Igor Mitrofanov of Space Research Institute, Moscow, principal investigator for this instrument, called the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN. "We measure the amount of hydrogen in the soil by observing how the neutrons are scattered, and hydrogen on Mars is an indicator of water."

The most likely hydrogen to be found in shallow ground of Gale Crater, near the Martian equator, is in hydrated minerals. These are minerals with water molecules, or related ions, bound into the crystalline structure of rocks. They can tenaciously retain water from a wetter past after all free water has gone.

Curiosity will soon have a different patch of ground beneath it. Today, the six-wheeled rover wiggled its four corner wheels side to side for the first time on Mars, as a test of the steering actuators on those wheels. This was critical preparation for Curiosity's first drive on Mars.

"Late tonight, we plan to send Curiosity the commands for doing our first drive tomorrow," said Curiosity Mission Manager Michael Watkins of JPL.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to Mars on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, EDT). In a two-year prime mission researchers are using the rover's 10 instruments to assess whether the selected study area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether life has existed.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech. More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl .

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

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First Words of Safe Landing on Mars - Tango Delta Nominal

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

News feature: 2012-253 Aug. 21, 2012

First Words of Safe Landing on Mars - Tango Delta Nominal

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-253&cid=release_2012-253

10:32 p.m. on the evening of Aug. 5 was turning out to be one long minute for Steve Sell. Of
course, the previous six had been significantly protracted as well. When added together, the
entry, descent and landing of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover had been touted as "Seven Minutes
of Terror," and as far as Sell was concerned things were trending in that direction. What the 42-
year-old engineer from Gettysburg, Pa., wanted more than anything in that seventh minute was
to hear the words "UHF Strong."

There had been a debate amongst Curiosity's entry, descent and landing team about what their
first words to indicate that the rover had reached the surface should be. The EDL team at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory knew their microphones would be "hot" and that NASA TV
was beaming the landing event out live to anybody with the desire and wherewithal to watch.
They also knew that landing safely on Mars meant more than simply landing on Mars – which
any one of the 34 engineers present at JPL's Building 264 Room 230, also known as the "EDL
War Room," will tell you at great length is not simple at all. Their rocket-propelled backpack and
rover-lowering Sky Crane system were getting their first all-up test 154 million miles (248
million kilometers) away from home, and there was still plenty that could go wrong even after
the rover was gently placed on the surface… plenty.

What if the descent stage kept descending right on top of the rover? What if the bridles
connecting the two did not separate? What if the algorithm used to throttle up the engines for
the flyaway maneuver was not accurate?

It was the remaining "what ifs" that made what those first words from Mars confirming the
rover was on the surface so important.

"If we said 'touchdown,' then people not intimately familiar with EDL might infer that Curiosity
was good to go," said Sell. "But two more major calls had to be made before I could begin to
breathe again."

At 10:31:45 p.m. PDT, Jody Davis saw the event record, or EVR, she was looking for appear on
her computer screen in the EDL War Room. She knew that the "Touchdown" EVR would only be
beamed down if the rover's descent stage had throttled down -- a result which could only occur
if the descent stage had offloaded half its weight. The only way the rover could offload half its
weight in an instant is if it were being held up from below.

Davis, a member of the EDL team and an engineer from NASA Langley Research Center in
Virginia, gave the much reviewed, pre-scripted call -- "Tango Delta nominal."

Tango and Delta are phonetic identifiers for T and D, which the team used to represent
touchdown.

One down, two to go, thought Sell. The next call the EDL team was looking for was "RIMU
Stable."

"RIMU stands for Rover Inertial Measurement Unit," said Sell. "The RIMU gives us the rover's
orientation as well as any movement it is making. If we landed on a crumbling crater wall or an
unstable sand dune, or were being dragged by a still-connected descent stage across the
surface, then the RIMU would show that in its data set."

The War Room's David Way, an engineer from JPL, was monitoring that unit's performance.
Eight long seconds after Jody's call, he found the EVR he was looking for.

"RIMU Stable," said Way.

One more crucial milestone to go.

Not receiving that one final call would be something of a long shot to be sure. After all, the
rover was down on the ground, and RIMU indicated it wasn't moving. Their system had been
proven every step of the way so far. But everyone in the EDL War Room got as far as they did
not only because they were excellent engineers, but because of their predilection for
concocting unappetizing entry, descent and landing scenarios – and then figuring out how to
elude them. And one ton of fuel-laden, rocket-firing descent stage climbing straight up, only to
fall right back down on their factory-fresh landing site and an otherwise good-to-go, roving
Mars laboratory was about as unappetizing a scenario as Sell could imagine.

That final confirmation would not come from Sell's location. The final confirmation that
Curiosity had landed clean would come 200 yards and one building away from the EDL War
Room. There, in the Mission Support Area of JPL's Building 230, Adam Steltzner, the mission's
EDL phase lead, was staring across the room at Brian Schwartz, who was not making eye
contact with anyone. Schwartz, the EDL communications engineer, was staring at his screen. His
task was not to check for a good-news EVR from the rover. Instead, he was waiting to see if the
UHF signal became intermittent, faded away or just cut out altogether – all potential indications
that the rover and descent stage had not gone their separate ways.

Eight seconds after the RIMU call – Schwartz looked up.

"UHF strong," said Schwartz.

With that, Steltzner had all the data he needed. Seated directly in front of the pacing EDL Phase
Lead, Allen Chen felt a jab in the shoulder. Chen, the mission's (capsule communicator), knew it
could only mean one thing.

"Touchdown confirmed," said Chen.

***
Epilogue
With time to reflect upon the events of August 5, Curiosity's EDL phase lead states only one
thing fazed him that evening.

"The biggest surprise about EDL was there were no surprises," said Steltzner. "But soon after
we were confirmed down, what I saw on the screen absolutely floored me."

Months, and even years before landing, Steltzner and his team had kicked around the idea of
imaging the final moments of the descent stage's short life. Wouldn't it be cool if the rover's
first pic could be timed just so?

Working with the surface operations team, they got the timing of the first images from the
surface timed for about 40 seconds after landing – a little bit after the time the descent stage
was estimated to impact the ground after flying away to a safe distance.

"We thought the odds were pretty small that we would see it," said Steltzner.

But there, right in the upper-middle of those first rear-hazcam images, was a plume of dust
rising from the surface.

A later image, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE,
aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in Martian orbit, provides the location
of what Curiosity team members believe is the final destination of the powered descent stage –
or Sky Crane – which was programmed to fly away automatically after safely depositing the
rover on the surface.

"With HiRISE we get the Sky Crane's distance and its compass heading with respect to the
rover," said Steltzner. "The cloud seen in the distance on the Hazcam images is in perfect
alignment with where we would expect to see the descent stage.

"The inescapable conclusion is that we captured the result of what happens when about 2,200
pounds (1,000 kilograms) of Sky Crane intersect with Martian surface at a pretty good clip. It is
truly an amazing shot on a day full of amazing shots."

A video of imagery from the rover during EDL, including Adam Steltzner's commentary, is
available at: http://1.usa.gov/NffoWl .

For more information on NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl and
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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Monday, August 20, 2012

New Insight on Mars Expected from New NASA Mission

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature Aug. 20, 2012

New Insight on Mars Expected from New NASA Mission

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-252&cid=release_2012-252

PASADENA, Calif. - On Aug. 20, NASA announced the selection of InSight, a new Discovery-class mission that will probe Mars at new depths by looking into the deep interior of Mars.

"We are certainly excited, but our veterans on this team know the drill," said Tom Hoffman, project manager for InSight from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Which is fortunate, because one of the great things we'll get to do on Mars is drill below the surface."

Drilling underneath the red Martian topsoil will be courtesy of InSight's HP3, or Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package - one of the four instruments the Mars lander will carry. Made by the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, HP3 will get below Mars' skin by literally pounding it into submission with a 14-inch (35-centimeter), hollowed-out, electromechanically-festooned stake called the Tractor Mole.

"The Tractor Mole has an internal hammer that rises and falls, moving the stake down in the soil and dragging a tether along behind it," said Sue Smrekar, deputy project scientist for InSight from JPL. "We're essentially doing the same thing any Boy or Girl Scout would do on a campout, but we're putting our stake down on Mars."

The German-built mole will descend up to 16 feet (five meters) below the surface, where its temperature sensors will record how much heat is coming from Mars' interior, which reveals the planet's thermal history.

"Getting well below the surface gets us away from the sun's influence and allows us to measure heat coming from the interior," said Smrekar. "InSight is going take heartbeat and vital signs of the Red Planet for an entire Martian year, two Earth years. We are really going to have an opportunity to understand the processes that control the early planetary formation."

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. The mission is led by W. Bruce Banerdt of JPL. InSight's science team includes U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry and government agencies. Along with DLR, the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, is also contributing an instrument to the two-year scientific mission.

InSight builds on spacecraft technology used in NASA's highly successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red Planet in 2007 and determined that water ice exists near the surface in the Martian polar regions.

Along with providing an onboard geodetic instrument to determine the planet's rotation axis, plus a robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on the Martian surface, JPL performs project management for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Discovery Program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

A web video about the Insight mission is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1121 . More information about InSight is at: http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov .

As a complement to NASA's larger "flagship" planetary science explorations, the Discovery Program goal is to achieve outstanding results by launching many smaller missions using fewer resources and shorter development times. The main objective is to enhance our understanding of the solar system by exploring the planets, their moons, and small bodies such as comets and asteroids. The program also seeks to improve performance through the use of new technology and broaden university and industry participation in NASA missions.

More information about the Discovery Program is at: http://discovery.nasa.gov .

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Curiosity Stretches its Arm

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

News feature: 2012-251 Aug. 20, 2012

Curiosity Stretches its Arm

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-251&cid=release_2012-251

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity flexed its robotic arm today for the
first time since before launch in November 2011.

The 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers a turret of tools including a camera, a
drill, a spectrometer, a scoop and mechanisms for sieving and portioning samples of
powdered rock and soil.

"We have had to sit tight for the first two weeks since landing, while other parts of the
rover were checked out, so to see the arm extended in these images is a huge moment for
us," said Matt Robinson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, lead engineer for
Curiosity's robotic arm testing and operations. "The arm is how we are going to get
samples into the laboratory instruments and how we place other instruments onto surface
targets."

Weeks of testing and calibrating arm movements are ahead before the arm delivers a first
sample of Martian soil to instruments inside the rover. Monday's maneuver checked
motors and joints by unstowing the arm for the first time, extending it forward using all
five joints, then stowing it again in preparation for the rover's first drive.

"It worked just as we planned," said JPL's Louise Jandura, sample system chief engineer
for Curiosity. "From telemetry and from the images received this morning, we can confirm
that the arm went to the positions we commanded it to go to."

The image of Curiosity's arm is online at: http://1.usa.gov/OSyG3B .

The turret has a mass of about 66 pounds (30 kilograms). Its diameter, including the tools
mounted on it, is nearly 2 feet (60 centimeters).

"We'll start using our sampling system in the weeks ahead, and we're getting ready to try
our first drive later this week," said Mars Science Laboratory Deputy Project Manager
Richard Cook of JPL.

Curiosity landed on Mars two weeks ago to begin a two-year mission using 10 instruments
to assess whether a carefully chosen study area inside Gale Crater has ever offered
environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Science Laboratory Project, including Curiosity, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. JPL designed and built the rover. The Space Division of MDA Information
Systems Inc. built the robotic arm in Pasadena.

More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at:
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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