What to Expect When Curiosity Starts Snapping Pictures

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

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

News release: 2012-226 Aug. 3, 2012

What to Expect When Curiosity Starts Snapping Pictures

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-226&cid=release_2012-226

If a group of tourists piled out of a transport vehicle onto the surface of Mars, they'd no
doubt start snapping pictures wildly. NASA's Curiosity rover, set to touch down on the
Red Planet the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT), will take a more careful
approach to capturing its first scenic views.

The car-size rover's very first images will come from the one-megapixel Hazard-
Avoidance cameras (Hazcams) attached to the body of the rover. Once engineers have
determined that it is safe to deploy the rover's Remote Sensing Mast and its high-tech
cameras, a process that may take several days, Curiosity will begin to survey its exotic
surroundings.

"A set of low-resolution gray scale Hazcam images will be acquired within minutes of
landing on the surface," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "Once all of the critical systems have been checked out by the
engineering team and the mast is deployed, the rover will image the landing site with
higher-resolution cameras."

Maki led the development of Curiosity's 12 engineering cameras -- eight Hazcams at the
front and back of the rover, and four Navigation cameras (Navcams) at the top of the
rover's "look-out" mast. All the engineering cameras acquire black-and-white pictures
from left and right stereo "eyes," which are merged to provide three-dimensional
information. Half of the cameras are backups, meaning there's one set for each of the
rover's A- and B-side redundant computers.

The very first images are likely to arrive more than two hours after landing, due to the
timing of NASA's signal-relaying Odyssey orbiter. They will be captured with the left
and right Hazcams at the back and front of the rover, and they will not yet be full-
resolution (the two images arriving on Earth first are "thumbnail" copies, which are 64 by
64 pixels in size). The Hazcams are equipped with very wide-angle, fisheye lenses,
initially capped with clear dust covers. The covers are designed to protect the cameras
from dust that may be kicked up during landing; they are clear just in case they don't pop
off as expected.

These first views will give engineers a good idea of what surrounds Curiosity, as well as
its location and tilt. "Ensuring that the rover is on stable ground is important before
raising the rover's mast," said Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper at JPL. "We are using
an entirely new landing system on this mission, so we are proceeding with caution."

Color pictures from the rover's Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, acquired as the rover
descends to the Martian surface, will help pinpoint the rover's location. Initial images
from MARDI are expected to be released Aug. 6, the day after landing. These will also
be in the form of thumbnails (in the case of the science cameras, thumbnails can vary in
size, with the largest being 192 pixels wide by 144 pixels high). One full-resolution
image may also be returned at this time.

Additional color views of the planet's surface are expected the morning of Aug. 7 from
the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, one of five devices on the rover's Inspector
Gadget-like arm. The camera is designed to take close-up pictures of rocks and soil, but
can also take images out to the horizon. When Curiosity lands and its arm is still stowed,
the instrument will be pointed to the side, allowing it to capture an initial color view of
the Gale Crater area.

Once Curiosity's mast is standing tall, the Navcams will begin taking one-megapixel
stereo pictures 360 degrees around the rover as well as images of the rover deck. These
cameras have medium-angle, 45-degree fields of views and could resolve the equivalent
of a golf ball lying 82 feet (25 meters) away. They are designed to survey the landscape
fairly quickly, and, not only can they look all around but also up and down. Navigation
camera pictures are expected to begin arriving on Earth about three days after landing if
the mast is deployed on schedule.

Like the Hazcams, Navcam images are used to obtain three-dimensional information
about the Martian terrain. Together, they help the scientists and engineers make decisions
about where and how to drive the rover and which rocks to examine with instruments that
identify chemical ingredients. "A large part of the surface mission is conducted using the
images returned from the cameras," said Maki.

Also, about three days after landing, the narrower field-of-view Mast Cameras
(Mastcams) are expected to start snapping their first shots. These two-megapixel color
cameras will reveal the rover's new home in exquisite detail. Small thumbnail versions of
the pictures will be sent down first with an initial high-resolution panorama expected
more than a week later.

The camera of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument will provide a
telescopic view of targets at a distance.

As the mission progresses, the entire suite of cameras and science instruments will work
together to hunt for clues to the mystery of Mars and help answer the long-standing
puzzle of whether our next-door-neighbor planet has ever offered environmental
conditions favorable for microbial life.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover are a project of NASA's
Science Mission Directorate. The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Curiosity was designed, developed and assembled at
JPL.

To view Curiosity's latest images, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl, http://www.nasa.gov/ and
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html . Raw
images will appear when available at mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/raw .

For information about NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission and its Curiosity rover,
visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the
mission on Facebook and on Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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