One of the things that Curiosity carries is 1.2 million names from 246 countries together with student essays and letters from the jpl engineers who constructed Curiosity. I think that shows the level of international interest in this mission and space exploration in general. These have all been miniaturized and printed onto 2 chips. In […]
The software upload is going ahead as planned. This gives us a breathing space to review the images and plan ahead. The big question is how long do we delay going to the clay outcrop at the bottom of Mt. Sharp? Should we investigate parts of our landing ellipse in more detail deviating from the […]
The first full resolution Mastcam panorama is coming through. It will take a few sols for it to fully download from Mars. Fantastic detail of Mt. Sharp and ground surface leading up to it. More later on that. In the next sol the first Characterisation Activity Phase (CAP) will end we move on to the […]
We wait for each pass by Odyssey or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to return more images. Our navigation cameras (NavCam) are producing the first of our panoramic mosaics. There are patches of the underlying bedrock exposed by the Skycrane rockets as Curiosity descended. Should we spend our valuable rover time studying them? Were they deposited […]
The first MastCam images are coming back. Thats another milestone as the 2 m high mast is now in position. Now is the time that we start suggesting experiments. A group of us decide that we need to understand the rock population in the first images. Ultimately this could tell us about the country rock […]
First Image of the 5.5 km high Mt. Sharp (HazCam), the ultimate target of Curiosity. Two of the Curiosity 50 cm diameter wheels are visible in the foreground.
Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Image of Curiosity Descent. Good news from ChemCam PI Roger Wiens ‘All Systems are Go’. The 2 m high mast will be raised on Sol 2 with ChemCam and the main stereo camera on it of course. Our first images of Mt. Sharp and the gravel floor of Gale Crater are coming […]
I have just been part of the most exciting science meeting I have ever yet been in for any work – MSL, or otherwise. We have gone over today’s images and started to bring together our mapping work. The sedimentologists like Sanjeev Gupta describe the alluvial fan that our landing ellipse intersects and show how […]
1.30 am PDT More images from the latest data relay. We get to work – linking it to what we saw from the orbital images and describing what we see. What environments on Earth have we seen this? Very good news from this data relay – some of the intsruments like ChemCam are […]
The next data relay via Mars Odyssey is at 12.30 am PDT (add 8 hours for BST). We will start the process of checking the instruments. That doesnt have the drama of landing but its why we are on Mars… The mission PI stresses that we need to be patient.
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