CONCRETIONS NEAR FRAM CRATER, MARS

FROM:  NASA
Martian Concretions Near Fram Crater

The small spherules on the Martian surface in this close-up image are near Fram Crater, visited by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during April 2004. The area shown is 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) across. The view comes from the microscopic imager on Opportunity's robotic arm, with color information added from the rover's panoramic camera.

These are examples of the mineral concretions nicknamed "blueberries." Opportunity's investigation of the hematite-rich concretions during the rover's three-month prime mission in early 2004 provided evidence of a watery ancient environment.

This image was taken during the 84th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (April 19, 2004). The location is beside Fram Crater, which Opportunity passed on its way from Eagle Crater, where it landed, toward Endurance Crater, where it spent most of the rest of 2004. Image Credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech-Cornell-USGS.

THE 'BONANZA KING' OF MARS

FROM:  NASA 

The pale rocks in the foreground of this fisheye image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover include the "Bonanza King" target under consideration to become the fourth rock drilled by the Mars Science Laboratory mission.  No previous mission has collected sample material from the interior of rocks on Mars. Curiosity delivers the drilled rock powder into analytical laboratory instruments inside the rover. Curiosity's front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam), which has a very wide-angle lens, recorded this view on Aug. 14, 2014, during the 719th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.  The view faces southward, looking down a ramp at the northeastern end of sandy-floored "Hidden Valley." Wheel tracks show where Curiosity drove into the valley, and back out again, earlier in August 2014.  The largest of the individual flat rocks in the foreground are a few inches (several centimeters) across.  For scale, the rover's left front wheel, visible at left, is 20 inches (0.5 meter) in diameter. A map showing Hidden Valley is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18408 . NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover and the rover's Navcam. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA VIDEO: NASA NOW: DESIGNING A NEW MARTIAN ROVERNASA

ROVER STUFF OR MARTIAN METAL? THE SHINY THING?

View of Curiosity's First Scoop Also Shows Bright Object
This image from the right Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a scoop full of sand and dust lifted by the rover's first use of the scoop on its robotic arm. In the foreground, near the bottom of the image, a bright object is visible on the ground. The object might be a piece of rover hardware.

This image was taken during the mission's 61st Martian day, or sol (Oct. 7, 2012), the same sol as the first scooping. After examining Sol 61 imaging, the rover team decided to refrain from using the arm on Sol 62 (Oct. 8). Instead, the rover was instructed to acquire additional imaging of the bright object, on Sol 62, to aid the team in assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities.

For scale, the scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long.
Image credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-MSSS

 

THE ROVER LOOKS TOWARD IT'S DESTINY, MT. SHARP

 

 

FROM: NASA, MARS

Layers at the Base of Mount Sharp

A chapter of the layered geological history of Mars is laid bare in this postcard from NASA's Curiosity rover. The image shows the base of Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual science destination.

This image is a portion of a larger image taken by Curiosity's 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Aug. 23, 2012.

For scale, an annotated version of the figure highlights a dark rock that is approximately the same size as Curiosity. The pointy mound in the center of the image, looming above the rover-sized rock, is about 1,000 feet (300 meters) across and 300 feet (100 meters) high.

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.

MARS ROVER: THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

FROM: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

September 11, 2012

Sol 35 update on Curiosity from USGS Scientist Ken Herkenhoff: Belly of the Rover

There were more cheers and applause when MAHLI images of the belly of the rover were displayed. The camera, which can focus at distances from 2 cm to infinity, is working perfectly! It also took pictures of its calibration target, which includes a 1909 Lincoln penny. The arm checkout also went well, leaving the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) facing its calibration target for a long integration. Unfortunately, ChemCam suffered a command error on Sol 34 and was shut down by the rover computer. This also prevented the rest of the planned remote sensing observations from being acquired that sol, and the remote sensing mast (RSM) from being used on Sol 35. So the Sol 35 plan was rather simple, including more APXS integration on its calibration target followed by retraction of the arm. Even though we couldn't use the RSM, we could still plan a test of Mastcam's video capability, as it doesn't matter where the cameras are pointed for this test. We are all hoping that recovery from the ChemCam error will be rapid, and that we will be able to use it and the rest of the instruments on the RSM tomorrow.

CURIOSITY CHRONICLES BRADBURY LANDING SITE

FROM: NASA

NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing

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 (JPL) 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 to 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.

"THIS WEEK AT NASA..." ARTICLES

NASA's space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis switched locations today at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and in the process came "nose-to-nose" for the last time in front of Orbiter Processing Facility 3
　
Endeavour was moved from Orbiter Processing Facility 2 to the Vehicle Assembly Building where it will be housed temporarily until its targeted departure from Kennedy atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in mid-September. After a stop at the Los Angeles International Airport, Endeavour will move in mid-October to the California Science Center for permanent public display.

Now in the processing facility after leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building, shuttle Atlantis will undergo preparations for its move to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in November, with a grand opening planned for July 2013.

FROM: NASA
This Week at NASA…

PRESIDENT OBAMA THANKS CURIOSITY TEAM – JPL
President Obama: "It is great to talk to all of you and I just wanted you to know that we could not be more excited."


At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Mars Curiosity flight control team took a few minutes from tending to NASA’s newest Red Planet rover to receive a special congratulatory phone call from President Barack Obama who was aboard AIR FORCE ONE.


President Obama: "What you’ve accomplished embodies 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."


JPL Director Charles Elachi thanked the President for his praise – and echoed the commander-in-chief’s hope that the excitement generated by the mission would help inspire a sense of exploration among younger generations.


Charles Elachi, Center Director, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: "On behalf of all of us at NASA, we thank you for taking the time to give us a call and hopefully we inspired some of the millions of young people who were watching this landing."


The president also emphasized that this mission is an international effort – offering gratitude to several of the countries that have contributed science instruments and expertise to aid Curiosity’s quest for evidence of microbial life on Mars.


President Obama: "Spain, Russia, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Australia … all of them contributed to the instrumentation that Curiosity landed on the Martian surface."


The rover team continues to transition Curiosity to a state of readiness for roving the Martian surface. Here’s a quick report from JPL on what’s been happening since Curiosity’s landing.


　

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.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
　
　
MARS ROVER REPORT – JPL (CP) Bobak Ferdowsi Reporting
Hi I’m Bobak Ferdowsi, flight director with the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and this is your Curiosity Rover Update.


This week, we did a color panorama surrounding the rover with both the Mastcam, in addition to the Navcams, and we also upgraded the software on board on both computers of the rover this week.


This new software is like having new applications with new functionalities on the rover to allow us to do mobility, deploy the arm and get to the science we’re looking forward to on the mission.


We also did a series of instrument checkouts. Those included the ChemCam instrument, The CheMin instrument, RAD science, REMS, APXS, SAM and the additional cameras on the rover, including the MAHLI instrument.


We also downlinked some MARDI high-resolution data images. Those are from the descent imager.


Coming up this week, we’ll be using the ChemCam to zap targets for the first time. We’ll also be deploying the arm and we’ll be checking the mobility system by doing what we call a rover bump, or a short drive.


RECORD BREAKING GALAXY CLUSTER – CXC
Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster, one of the largest objects in the universe, that is breaking several important cosmic records. Observations of the Phoenix cluster, located about 5.7 billion light years from Earth, with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope, and eight other world-class observatories may force astronomers to rethink how these colossal structures and the galaxies that inhabit them evolve.


Stars are forming in the Phoenix cluster at the highest rate ever observed for the middle of a galaxy cluster. The object also is the most powerful producer of X-rays of any known cluster and among the most massive. The data also suggest the rate of hot gas cooling in the central regions of the cluster is the largest ever observed.


Because of their tremendous size, galaxy clusters are crucial objects for studying cosmology and galaxy evolution, so finding one with such extreme properties like the Phoenix cluster is important.


RUSSIAN SPACEWALK PREVIEW – JSC (To be updated on 8/20)
Kieth Johnson, lead U.S. spacewalk officer: "The last EVA that was performed on space station by the U.S. team was by Mike Fossum and Ron Garan during the STS-135 mission."


The Johnson Space Center hosted members of the media to preview two upcoming spacewalks involving U.S., Russian and Japanese crew members aboard the International Space Station.


On August 30, NASA Flight Engineer Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to egress the Quest airlock for a 6 1/2-hour excursion to perform electrical work on the truss and install cables for a future Russian laboratory module. It will be Hoshide's first spacewalk and the third for a Japanese astronaut.


Ten days before that EVA, Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency are scheduled to venture outside the Pirs airlock for a six-hour spacewalk to install debris shields on the Zvezda service module and move a telescoping cargo crane from Pirs to the Zarya module.


ORION CHUTE RECOVERY – JSC (CP) Josh Byerly Reporting
While NASA’s teams have been taking a close look at how Orion’s parachutes behave as the 20,000-pound spacecraft descends through the sky, they’ve also been investigating another challenge: How do you recover parachutes that are 100-feet-wide from the water?


NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston was the setting as these teams took some of Orion’s drogue and main parachutes and dunked them in the water. They were noting how long the chutes stayed afloat, and the best ways to get ‘em out of the water and into a boat. Each one of the main chutes weighs close to 300 pounds; the water doubles that weight. So testing ways of handling them – and doing it safely – is important.


Chris Johnson, Orion Parachute Project Engineer: "We learn every time we do a parachute test of something. We find ways to improve the parachute design, so that when we finally fly the parachute system for human space flight, it’s a safe and reliable system."


The Orion team was joined by members of the United States NAVY, as well as the recovery forces that will work Exploration Flight Test -1; Orion’s first unmanned test flight scheduled for 2014. That flight will send Orion more than 3600 miles into space, reaching speeds of more than 20,000 miles per hour, and returning for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. This recovery testing on Orion’s parachutes and the capsule itself will continue during the lead up to EFT-1. Orion also has more drop tests planned at the Langley Research Center and parachute tests at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds later this month.


HELIO DECADAL SURVEY – HQ
Thomas H. Zurbuchen, University of Michigan: "The decade we believe will be one of discovery and one of new and innovative approaches and tools –things that we will develop."


The National Research Council has released its second decadal survey in solar and space physics, or heliophysics. The broad-based assessment identifies the highest scientific priorities of the U.S. solar and space physics research enterprise for the next ten years.


Daniel N. Baker, University of Colorado: "It’s truly national in scope, it’s really intended to talk about NASA, NSF, NOAA, DOD – all of the investments that are being made in solar and space physics in various ways."


Requested by NASA and the National Science Foundation, this "decadal survey" follows the NRC’s previous survey in solar and space physics.


FLEXIBLE LEARNING - HQ
Acting Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot and Langley Research Center Director Lesa Roe joined others at a Headquarters recognition ceremony for contributors to a new FlexBook developed by NASA and the non-profit education organization, CK-12. A Flexbook is an open source textbook that can be customized and evolve with the changing needs of a user – and help maximize STEM teaching and learning in grades K-12.


Robert Lightfoot, NASA Acting Associate Administrator: "As we challenge the boundaries of everything – all of the technologies that we need to do that, we’ve got to have the modeling and simulation to allow us to deal with those uncertainties in the environments we’re going to face, the temperatures, the pressures – all of the different things that our spacecraft are going to see. Hopefully this project will help lead to us having that workforce we’re going to need in the future."


The new FlexBook, entitled Modeling and Simulation for High School Teachers: Principles, Problems, and Lesson Plans, is set for broad release this month.


HS3 – WFF (CP) Patrick Black Reporting
An upcoming mission to study the development of Atlantic hurricanes using unmanned aerial vehicles based at the Wallops Flight Facility was discussed during a public presentation at the facility’s Visitor Center. The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) is a five-year mission specifically targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.


Marilyn Vasques, HS3 project manager, Ames Research Center: "If we can understand more about the storms then we can predict that better. We can get people out of harm’s way, we can not evacuate people when they don’t need to evacuate, and we can save human lives by making sure that everyone’s informed and has the best information possible."


HS3 will use two NASA Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles, one with an instrument suite geared toward measurement of the environment and the other with instruments suited to inner-core structure and processes. The aircraft are capable of flight altitudes greater than 55,000 feet and flight durations of up to 30 hours. More than 200 people will be involved in preparing and supporting the aircraft, flight planning and aircraft coordination and conducting the science data collection.


Marilyn Vasques, HS3 project manager, Ames Research Center: "It’s the volume of data that really makes it unique. And the scientists are all going to be working together and communicating and even showing real time data during the mission to help them understand what they’re seeing, and communicate while they’re doing their evaluation. All this stuff is going to be fed into models that can help us better predict storms."


In addition to the 2012 mission, the project also will be conducted from Wallops in 2013 and 2014, providing sustained measurements over several years due to the limited sampling opportunities in any given hurricane season.


SMOKEY CELEBRATES IN HOUSTON – JSC
Smokey Bear visited the Johnson Space Center to celebrate both his 68th birthday and a Space Act agreement between NASA and the U.S. Forest Service. JSC Deputy Director Ellen Ochoa, astronaut Mike Fossum and others rolled out the red carpet for Smokey and members of both the U.S. and the Texas Forest Service – complete with a tour of Mission Control and birthday cake. Smokey also met Robonaut and its designers, and made a special stop at the JSC Child Care center to talk about fire prevention and to plant a tree to symbolize the partnership between NASA and the Forest Service.


NASA Anniversary: Launch of Voyager 2 – August 20, 1977
On August 20, the Voyager 2 spacecraft chalks up another year of exploration. Thirty-five years ago on that date Voyager 2 launched from Cape Canaveral to explore Jupiter and Saturn. After a string of discoveries at those planets the mission of Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1, launched less than a month later, was extended to the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune. The duo’s current campaign, the Voyager Interstellar Mission – is helping NASA reach beyond the outer planets to the "Heliosheath", the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas. This extended mission continues to characterize the outer solar system environment and search for the heliopause boundary, the outer limits of the Sun's magnetic field and outward flow of the solar wind.


NASA Anniversary: The "Ride Report" released – August 17, 1987
Twenty-five years ago, in 1987 the late Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space headed a group at NASA Headquarters that completed an assessment of NASA's options beyond the space station. On August 17 of that year NASA released that group’s report, "Leadership and America's Future in Space" which came to be known as the "Ride Report". The document recommended major programs to study earth sciences with powerful orbiting sensors and exploration of the solar system with new generations of robotic probes.

And that’s This Week @NASA.

TO ALL MARTIANS: WE COME IN PEACE TO BLAST YOUR PLANET WITH A LASER

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Los Alamos Laser Instrument Arrives on Red Planet’s Surface
LANL ChemCam to be tested soon and will begin probing Mars mysteries

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 6, 2012—Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are elated by Sunday’s successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars, and are ready to begin a nearly two-year-long mission that will use a rock-zapping laser device mounted on the mast of the SUV-sized rover to help unravel mysteries of the Red Planet. The ChemCam laser characterization instrument was developed at LANL and the French space institute, IRAP.

"I can’t describe the feeling when we realized that Curiosity had landed safely on the planet," said LANL planetary scientist Roger Wiens, principal investigator of the Mars Science Laboratory mission’s ChemCam team. "My own curiosity about Mars began when I was a boy, and having an instrument that I’ve handled land on the Martian surface fulfills a lifelong dream that started long ago with a backyard telescope. This is an extremely happy, fulfilling moment."

The ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the MSL mission’s Curiosity rover—a six-wheeled mobile laboratory that will roam more than 12 miles of the planet’s surface during the course of one Martian year (98 Earth weeks). When ChemCam fires its extremely powerful laser pulse, it briefly focuses the energy of a million light bulbs onto an area the size of a pinhead. The laser blast vaporizes part of its target up to seven meters (23 feet) away.

The resultant flash of glowing plasma is viewed by the system’s 4.3-inch aperture telescope, which records the colors of light within the flash. These spectral colors are then interpreted by a spectrometer, enabling scientists to determine the elemental composition of the vaporized material. ChemCam also has a high-resolution camera that provides close-up images of an analyzed location. It can image a human hair from seven feet away.

The core ChemCam team is comprised of Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers and scientists from IRAP, a partner institution in Toulouse, France. Scientists from around the U.S., France, Canada, and the United Kingdom, along with post-doctoral researchers and students from LANL, round out the entire 45-person team.

Sometime around August 10 (sol 4 in Martian days after landing), the ChemCam team expects to take images of calibration targets mounted on the Rover. These initial tests will help scientists determine the integrity of the ChemCam system and the pointing capability of the rover’s mast, which supports ChemCam’s laser and telescope.

The ChemCam instrument is the first to perform active remote sensing on the surface of the Red Planet. It can deliver three laser pulses each second to a single area, or it can quickly zap multiple areas, providing researchers with great versatility for sampling the surface of the planet. The first few laser pulses remove dust that would otherwise obscure the target surface, enabling scientists to observe the underlying sample. In that sense, the laser is like a long arm that can reach out more than twenty feet and brush off a sample before analysis.

The laser can profile through and study surface coatings on rocks, which, Earth scientists have learned, can often provide important clues to climate and water interaction, and can indicate biological interaction with surface materials. ChemCam is designed to look for lighter elements such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, all of which are crucial for life, as well as to determine abundances of other elements.

After firing its laser, the ChemCam system looks at the entire visible spectrum as well as portions on either side (the infrared and ultraviolet), which gives the instrument the ability to see any element in the periodic table. Researchers expect to take the first analyses of the Martian surface sometime on or after sol 11 or 12 (August 17-18). The system is designed to capture as many as 14,000 observations throughout the mission.

Curiosity is expected to investigate the Gale Crater located close to the equator near the boundary between the southern highlands and the more featureless northern low plains of Mars. The massive crater spans 96 miles in diameter, an area roughly equivalent to the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. A towering mountain, informally named Mount Sharp, rises up nearly three miles above the crater floor. This mammoth feature will provide opportunities for ChemCam to sample geologic layers on the mountainside.

"The amazing thing about the mountain in Gale crater is that it appears from orbit to be entirely sedimentary material," said Nina Lanza, a post-doctoral researcher in LANL’s International, Space, and Response (ISR) division. "This is a collection of sedimentary layers that is nearly three times higher than the Grand Canyon is deep."

Probing this stratified geology with ChemCam could help researchers understand how the Red Planet transformed over time into a drier, less hospitable climate.

Los Alamos also has roles in other aspects of the Mars Science Laboratory. Dave Vaniman of LANL’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Division is deputy leader of another instrument called CheMin, which uses X-ray diffraction to determine the composition of mineral samples collected and dropped into a funnel on the Curiosity rover.

Los Alamos also provided radioisotope fuel processing and encapsulation for the rover's electrical power generator and heat source, called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). The generator keeps the rover's battery charged night and day, giving Curiosity the potential of being the longest-operating, farthest-traveling, most-productive Mars surface mission in history.

Weighing nearly a ton, Curiosity is the largest rover ever deployed to another planet. Previously, NASA sent a pair of much smaller rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, to Mars in January 2004. Both rovers gathered a wide range of rock and soil data that have helped provide important information about the wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable to supporting microbial life. The Opportunity rover continues to gather data and send images and information back to Earth—surpassing its planned mission by many years

CURIOSITY REPORT AFTER LANDING ON MARS

FROM: NASA
NASA's most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity, has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars early Monday EDT to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. President Obama said the landing "will stand as a point of national pride far into the future."
After seven dramatic minutes of entry, descent, and landing, everyone will want to know: did Curiosity survive? There’s a possibility we won’t know. At least not right away.

During its descent through the atmosphere, Curiosity must switch to a new antenna for each transformation it makes. At each switch, we could lose lock on the signal for a short time. That won’t hurt the rover. It just means we won’t know what’s happening right way.

Even with a solid signal, the communications link direct to Earth only works during the first half of the rover’s descent. Why? Like Earth, Mars is spinning – and during landing, Curiosity and its landing site will disappear from view, like the sun setting.

Out of sight equals the end of direct radio contact.

BUT…NASA has two spacecraft orbiting Mars that can help.

For the second half of Curiosity’s descent, the Mars Odyssey orbiter is in a good place to pick up the rover’s signal and send it right back to Earth. To best hear Curiosity’s signal, Odyssey must rotate about an hour before landing.

That sounds easy, but engineers are asking Odyssey to perform a maneuver it’s never tried before. Will it work? Probably. But it’s not a sure thing.

If Odyssey doesn’t rotate successfully, never fear! The rover won’t be affected whatsoever! Once again, it just means we have to wait longer to hear from the rover.

Odyssey could perform as hoped, but we’re still not home free! Engineers always think of ‘what ifs.’ For instance, what if the rover lands on a slope? If so, the low flying Odyssey orbiter might not be able to pick up its signal.

Even if everything goes according to plan with Odyssey, there’s a final challenge: time. The rover may be standing safe on Mars, but Odyssey has to be quick in getting the signal. Odyssey is moving fast. It will only be in the line of sight to hear from the rover for a few minutes--perhaps no more than 5.

So the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter plays the role of backup. It will also fly overhead to capture what happens and then store the landing data it collects onboard, for playback to Earth a few hours later. Engineers then have to decode the data, which takes several hours.

Sometime in the middle of the night for Curiosity’s mission team, it’s possible that the orbiter could tell us the rover’s fate.

Or, there are other scenarios where the rover might be perfectly safe, but we might not hear from it for three days.

That’s all to say: Curiosity’s landing is filled with drama and we’ll need lots of patience. No wonder they call this ‘rocket science.’


› View Now

CURIOSITY GOES TO MARS

Curiosity and Descent Stage, Artist's Concept NASA, CAL-TECH
FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Bradbury Science Museum Gets Martian Fever!
Public invited to Curiosity rover landing party Sunday night at new Mars exhibit
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, July 31, 2012—Curious about Curiosity, the SUV-sized rover scheduled to touch down on Mars on Sunday? Then come on down to an opening party for a new exhibit about it this Sunday at the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos.

The public is invited to a special opening reception beginning at 10 p.m. Sunday (August 5, 2012) to celebrate Los Alamos National Laboratory technologies aboard the six-wheeled mobile science laboratory. The Curiosity rover, the centerpiece of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet Sunday at 11:31 p.m. local (Mountain Daylight) time. The museum plans to show the landing via NASA TV live that evening.

While waiting for the nail-biting news about the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, visitors to the new museum exhibit can learn about LANL technologies on board, view a nearly life-sized 3-dimensional stereo poster of Curiosity, and use their iPhone or iPad to interact with it. Light refreshments will be served.

"This is an exhibit about LANL technology on Mars. We’re really excited to showcase LANL’s scientific and technologic expertise while also providing an educational and fun experience for the public," said Bradbury Science Museum Director Linda Deck. "We’ve been thinking about this for months and intensely working on it about four weeks," she said, adding that the exhibit will remain in place indefinitely in the museum’s TechLab.

Museum visitors will find display models of ChemCam—the rock-zapping laser that will help characterize Martian geology—CheMin, which uses X-ray diffraction to determine the composition of mineral samples collected and dropped into a funnel on the Curiosity rover; and simulated radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), the tiny plutonium canisters that provide heat and power sources that give Curiosity several times as much electricity as previous-generation rovers—a necessity for the much larger and more-advanced payload on Curiosity.

LATE AFTERNOON ON MARS

FROM:  NASA

NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity catches its own late-afternoon shadow in this dramatically lit view eastward across Endeavour Crater on Mars. The rover used the panoramic camera (Pancam) between about 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. local Mars time to record images taken through different filters and combined into this mosaic view. Most of the component images were recorded during the 2,888th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars (March 9, 2012). At that time, Opportunity was spending low-solar-energy weeks of the Martian winter at the Greeley Haven outcrop on the Cape York segment of Endeavour's western rim. In order to give the mosaic a rectangular aspect, some small parts of the edges of the mosaic and sky were filled in with parts of an image acquired earlier as part of a 360-degree panorama from the same location. Opportunity has been studying the western rim of Endeavour Crater since arriving there in August 2011. This crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, or about the same area as the city of Seattle. This is more than 20 times wider than Victoria Crater, the largest impact crater that Opportunity had previously examined. The interior basin of Endeavour is in the upper half of this view. The mosaic combines about a dozen images taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see, such as the dark sandy ripples and dunes on the crater's distant floor. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.