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Friday, August 17, 2012

NASA Curiosity Team Pinpoints Site for First Drive

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

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-246 Aug. 17, 2012

NASA Curiosity Team Pinpoints Site for First Drive

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-246&cid=release_2012-246

PASADENA, Calif. -- The scientists and engineers of NASA's Curiosity rover mission have selected the first driving destination for their one-ton, six-wheeled mobile Mars laboratory. The target area, named Glenelg, is a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. The choice was described by Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology during a media teleconference on Aug. 17.

"With such a great landing spot in Gale Crater, we literally had every degree of the compass to choose from for our first drive," Grotzinger said. "We had a bunch of strong contenders. It is the kind of dilemma planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the first drilling for a rock sample on Mars. That first drilling will be a huge moment in the history of Mars exploration."

The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 1,300 feet (400 meters) east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the first drilling target.

"We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road," Grotzinger said. "Our challenge is there is no GPS on Mars, so we have a roomful of rover-driver engineers providing our turn-by-turn navigation for us."

Prior to the rover's trip to Glenelg, the team in charge of Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is planning to give their mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough checkout. On Saturday night, Aug. 18, ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.

"Rock N165 looks like your typical Mars rock, about three inches wide. It's about 10 feet away," said Roger Wiens, principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "We are going to hit it with 14 millijoules of energy 30 times in 10 seconds. It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, it should be pretty cool too."

Mission engineers are devoting more time to planning the first roll of Curiosity. In the coming days, the rover will exercise each of its four steerable (front and back) wheels, turning each of them side-to-side before ending up with each wheel pointing straight ahead. On a later day, the rover will drive forward about one rover-length (10 feet, or 3 meters), turn 90 degrees, and then kick into reverse for about 7 feet (2 meters).

"There will be a lot of important firsts that will be taking place for Curiosity over the next few weeks, but the first motion of its wheels, the first time our roving laboratory on Mars does some actual roving, that will be something special," said Michael Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area on Mars at 10:31:45 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6), which included the 13.8 minutes needed for confirmation of the touchdown to be radioed to Earth at the speed of light.

The audio and visuals of the teleconference are archived and available for viewing at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl.

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. ChemCam was provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory. France provided ChemCam's laser and telescope.

For more information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl.

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Thursday, August 16, 2012

NASA to Host Curiosity Rover Teleconference Aug. 17

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Orbiter Views NASA's New Mars Rover in Color

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

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-243 Aug. 14, 2012

Orbiter Views NASA's New Mars Rover in Color

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-243&cid=release_2012-243

PASADENA, Calif. -- The first color image taken from orbit showing NASA's rover Curiosity on
Mars includes details of the layered bedrock on the floor of Gale Crater that the rover is beginning to
investigate.

Operators of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter added the color view to earlier observations of Curiosity descending on its
parachute, and one day after landing.

"The rover appears as double bright spot plus shadows from this perspective, looking at its shadowed
side, set in the middle of the blast pattern from the descent stage," said HiRISE Principal Investigator
Alfred McEwen, of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "This image was acquired from an angle
looking 30 degrees westward of straight down. We plan to get one in a few days looking more
directly down, showing the rover in more detail and completing a stereo pair."

Meanwhile, Curiosity has finished a four-day process transitioning both of its redundant main
computers to flight software for driving and using tools on the rover's arm. During the latter part of
the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's 36-week flight to Mars and its complicated descent to
deliver Curiosity to the Martian surface on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, EDT and Universal Time), the
rover's computers used a version of flight software with many capabilities no longer needed. The new
version expands capabilities for work the rover will do now that it is on Mars.

"We have successfully completed the brain transplant," said Curiosity Mission Manager Mike
Watkins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Now we are moving on to a new
phase of functional checkouts of the science instruments and preparations for a short test drive."

The first drive, possibly within a week or so, will likely include short forward and reverse segments
and a turn. Curiosity has a separate drive motor on each of its six wheels and steering motors on the
four corner wheels. Preparation and testing of the motor controllers will precede the first drive.

After the test drive, the planning schedule has an "intermission" before a second testing phase
focused on use of the rover's robotic arm. For the intermission, the 400-member science team will
have the opportunity to pick a location for Curiosity to drive to before the arm-testing weeks.

"It's fair to say that the scientists, not to mention the rover drivers, are itching to move," said JPL's
Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project scientist for Curiosity.

Researchers have been examining images from Curiosity's cameras and HiRISE to identify potential
targets to investigate near the rover and on the visible slope of the nearby three-mile-high mound
informally named Mount Sharp.

"The science and operations teams are evaluating several potential routes that would take us to Mount
Sharp, with perhaps a few waypoints to inspect some of the different terrains we've identified as we
map the landing area," Vasavada said. "As we have reported many times before, it's going to take us a
good part of our first year to make it to the layered sediments on Mount Sharp."

During a prime mission of nearly two years, researchers will use Curiosity to investigate whether the
selected area of Mars has ever offered chemical ingredients for life and other environmental
conditions favorable for supporting microbial life. 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.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or
Opportunity. The landing site inside Gale Crater places the rover within driving distance of layers of
Mount Sharp. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers,
indicating a wet history.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science
Laboratory and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. JPL designed and built Curiosity. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona in
Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.

For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro . To see thousands
of images from HiRISE, visit http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu .

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl ,
http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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

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Monday, August 13, 2012

NASA Hosts Teleconference About Curiosity Rover Progress

NASA/JPL's Educator Resource Center Offers Exploring Mars Workshop This Weekend

Educator Workshop Aug. 13, 2012

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office.

Exploring Mars

Date: Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012 - 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Target audience: Educators, grades 3-8 (all educators -- formal and informal -- are welcome)

Location: NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center, Pomona, Calif.

Overview: This standards-based workshop will focus on the similarities and differences in Mars geology. Compare and contrast Earth and Mars images to discover how landscapes evolved. Learn how to make the traditional baking soda and vinegar volcano activity into a geologic and mathematical gold mine! This workshop is being offered at the NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center located in Pomona, please call 909-397-4420 to reserve your spot. This workshop will be restricted to 25 participants.

For more information and directions, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=115

NASA/JPL Educator Resource Center workshops are offered on Saturdays at the Educator Resource Center in Pomona, Calif. from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For a full list of professional development workshops from NASA/JPL Education, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=110.

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President Obama to Call NASA's Mars Rover Team Today

Friday, August 10, 2012

NASA Curiosity Mars Rover Installing Smarts for Driving

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 /

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

News release: 2012-238 Aug. 10, 2012

NASA Curiosity Mars Rover Installing Smarts for Driving

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-238&cid=release_2012-238

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will spend its first weekend on Mars
transitioning to software better suited for tasks ahead, such as driving and using its strong robotic
arm.

The rover's "brain transplant," which will occur during a series of steps Aug. 10 through Aug. 13, will
install a new version of software on both of the rover's redundant main computers. This software for
Mars surface operations was uploaded to the rover's memory during the Mars Science Laboratory
spacecraft's flight from Earth.

"We designed the mission from the start to be able to upgrade the software as needed for different
phases of the mission," said Ben Cichy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,
chief software engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory mission. "The flight software version
Curiosity currently is using was really focused on landing the vehicle. It includes many capabilities
we just don't need any more. It gives us basic capabilities for operating the rover on the surface, but
we have planned all along to switch over after landing to a version of flight software that is really
optimized for surface operations."

A key capability in the new version is image processing to check for obstacles. This allows for longer
drives by giving the rover more autonomy to identify and avoid potential hazards and drive along a
safe path the rover identifies for itself. Other new capabilities facilitate use of the tools at the end of
the rover's robotic arm.

While Curiosity is completing the software transition, the mission's science team is continuing to
analyze images the rover has taken of its surroundings inside Gale Crater. Researchers are discussing
which features in the scene to investigate after a few weeks of initial checkouts and observations to
assess equipment on the rover and characteristics of the landing site.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area on Mars at 10:31:45
p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6), which includes the 13.8 minutes needed for
confirmation of the touchdown to be radioed to Earth at the speed of light.

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.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or
Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site at 4.59 degrees south, 137.44 degrees east, places the rover
within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have
identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

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

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
http://www.nasa.gov/mars 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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Free NASA/JPL Teacher Workshop Tomorrow

Free NASA/JPL Teacher Workshop Tomorrow Aug. 10, 2012

This is a feature from the NASA/JPL Education Office

NASA Lunar and Meteorite Sample Certification Program

Date: Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Target audience: K-12 educators

Location: Columbia Memorial Space Center, Downey, Calif.

Overview: NASA makes actual lunar samples from the historic Apollo missions available to lend to teachers. Attend this certification workshop to bring the excitement of real lunar rocks and regolith samples to your students.

To register, contact the Columbia Memorial Space Center at (562) 231-1200.

Visit http://bit.ly/Nl1DTV for more information and directions

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Thursday, August 9, 2012

NASA's Curiosity Beams Back a Color 360 of Gale Crater

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

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

News release: 2012-237 Aug. 9, 2012

NASA's Curiosity Beams Back A Color 360 Of Gale Crater

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-237&cid=release_2012-237

PASADENA, Calif. – The first images from Curiosity's color Mast Camera, or Mastcam, have been
received by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The 130 low-
resolution thumbnails, which were received Thursday morning, provide scientists and engineers of
NASA's newest Mars rover their first color, horizon-to-horizon glimpse of Gale Crater.

"After a year in cold storage, where it endured the rigors of launch, the deep space cruise to Mars and
everything that went on during landing, it is great to see our camera is working as planned," said
Mike Malin, principal investigator of the Mastcam instrument from Malin Space Science Systems in
San Diego. "As engaging as this color panorama is, it is important to note this is only one-eighth the
potential resolution of images from this camera."

The Curiosity team also continued to downlink high-resolution black-and-white images from its
Navigation Camera, or Navcam. These individual images have been stitched together to provide a
high-resolution Navcam panorama, including a glimpse of the rover's deck. Evident on some portions
of the deck are some small Martian pebbles.

"The latest Navcam images show us that the rocket engines on our descent stage kicked up some
material from the surface of Mars, several pieces which ended up on our rover's deck," said Mike
Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from JPL. "These small pebbles we currently see are up to
about 1 centimeter [0.4 inch] in size and should pose no problems for mission operations. It will be
interesting to see how long our hitchhikers stick around."

Curiosity's color panorama of Gale Crater is online at: http://1.usa.gov/P7VsUw . Additional images
from Curiosity are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

Mission engineers devoted part of their third Martian day, or "Sol 3," to checking the status of four of
Curiosity's science instruments after their long trip. The rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer,
Chemistry and Mineralogy analyzer, Sample Analysis at Mars, and Dynamic of Albedo Neutrons
instruments were each energized and went through a preliminary checkout. The team also performed
a check on the rover's second flight computer.

Even before landing, the mission's science team began the process of creating a geological map of
about 150 square miles (about 390 square kilometers) within Gale Crater that includes the landing
area.

"It is important to understand the geological context around Curiosity," said Dawn Sumner of the
University of California, Davis, a member of the Curiosity science team. "We want to choose a route
to Mount Sharp that makes good progress toward the destination while allowing important science
observations along the way."

The mapping project divided the area into 151 quadrangles of about one square mile (about 2.6
square kilometers) each. Curiosity landed in the quadrangle called Yellowknife. Yellowknife is the
city in northern Canada that was the starting point for many of the great geological expeditions to
map the oldest rocks in North America.

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.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or
Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the
crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the
lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
http://www.nasa.gov/mars 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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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

First 360-Degree Panorama from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

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 / DC Agle 8180-354-6278 / 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: 2012-235 Aug. 9, 2012

First 360-Degree Panorama from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-235&cid=release_2012-235

PASADENA, Calif. -- Remarkable image sets from NASA's Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are continuing to develop the story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.

The images from Curiosity's just-activated navigation cameras, or Navcams, include the rover's first self-portrait, looking down at its deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution thumbnails, is the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in Gale Crater. Also downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams providing the most detailed depiction to date of the surface adjacent to the rover.

"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."

Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, or CTX, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has pinpointed the final resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at a high speed of about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.

Curiosity's latest images are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

Wednesday, the team deployed the 3.6 foot-tall (1.1-meter) camera mast, activated and gathered surface radiation data from the rover's Radiation Assessment Detector and concluded testing of the rover's high-gain antenna.

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.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover projects are managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars 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 .

For more about NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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