Curiosity on Mars

[Rick]

Curiosity Stretches its Arm

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.

"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."

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-251

[Rick]

Rover's Laser Instrument Zaps First Martian Rock

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called "Coronation."

The mission's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, hit the fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

The energy from the laser excites atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light from that spark with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the target.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-248

[Rick]

NASA Mars Rover Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing

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.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-256

[Mike]

Excellent interpolated HD video of the Curiosity descent - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJgeoHBQpFQ&feature=youtu.be

[mickw]

Nasa's Curiosity rover has only been on the surface of Mars seven weeks but it has already turned up evidence of past flowing water on the planet.

The robot has returned pictures of classic conglomerates - rocks that are made up of gravels and sand.

Scientists on the mission team say the size and rounded shape of the pebbles in the rock indicate they had been transported and eroded in water.

Researchers think the rover has found a network of ancient streams.

More:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19744131

[mickw]

Mars Mystery: Has Curiosity Rover Made Big Discovery?

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to learn what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.

The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported today (Nov. 20). SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity's huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently.

"This data is gonna be one for the history books," Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, told NPR. "It's looking really good."

More:   http://www.space.com/18565-mars-rover-curiosity-discovery-mystery.html

[mickw]

Mars Curiosity rover put into 'safe mode' after glitch

Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover has been put into "safe mode" after a computer glitch caused by corrupted files.
The robot, which is analysing rock samples on the red planet, is now running from a back-up computer.
Nasa scientists are looking into possible causes for the files on the robot's flash memory being damaged.
The fault means the rover's work has been put on temporary hold while the back-up computer is reconfigured so it can take full control.

"We're still early on in the process," said project manager Richard Cook, in an interview with Space.com

More:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21654308
A bit more:  http://www.space.com/20034-mars-rover-curiosity-computer-glitch.html

[Rocket Pooch]

Who was there to press F8?

[JonH]

Prob the same person who took that supposed self portrait of it....

[Rick]

Curiosity Rover's Recovery on Track

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has transitioned from precautionary "safe mode" to active status on the path of recovery from a memory glitch last week. Resumption of full operations is anticipated by next week.

Controllers switched the rover to a redundant onboard computer, the rover's "B-side" computer, on Feb. 28 when the "A-side" computer that the rover had been using demonstrated symptoms of a corrupted memory location. The intentional side swap put the rover, as anticipated, into minimal-activity safe mode.

Curiosity exited safe mode on Saturday and resumed using its high-gain antenna on Sunday.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-080

[Rick]

Curiosity Rover's Recovery Moving Forward

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity continues to move forward with assessment and recovery from a memory glitch that affected the rover's A-side computer. Curiosity has two computers that are redundant of one another. The rover is currently operating using the B-side computer, which is operating as expected.

Over the weekend, Curiosity's mission operations team continued testing and assessing the A-side computer's memory.

"These tests have provided us with a great deal of information about the rover's A-side memory," said Jim Erickson, deputy project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We have been able to store new data in many of the memory locations previously affected and believe more runs will demonstrate more memory is available."

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-091

[Rick]

New Curiosity 'Safe Mode' Status Expected to be Brief

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is expected to resume science investigations in a few days, as engineers quickly diagnosed a software issue that prompted the rover to put itself into a precautionary standby status over the weekend.

Curiosity initiated this automated fault-protection action, entering "safe mode" at about 8 p.m. PDT (11 p.m. EDT) on March 16, while operating on the B-side computer, one of its two main computers that are redundant to each other. It did not switch to the A-side computer, which was restored last week and is available as a back-up if needed. The rover is stable, healthy and in communication with engineers.

The safe-mode entry was triggered when a command file failed a size-check by the rover's protective software. Engineers diagnosed a software bug that appended an unrelated file to the file being checked, causing the size mismatch.

more: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-100

[Rick]

Curiosity Rover Exits 'Safe Mode'

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has returned to active status and is on track to resume science investigations, following two days in a precautionary standby status, "safe mode."

Next steps will include checking the rover's active computer, the B-side computer, by commanding a preliminary free-space move of the arm. The B-side computer was provided information last week about the position of the robotic arm, which was last moved by the redundant A-side computer.

The rover was switched from the A-side to the B-side by engineers on Feb. 28 in response to a memory glitch on the A-side. The A-side now is available as a back-up if needed.

"We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by the end of the week," said Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.


More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-104

[Rick]

Pebbly Rocks Testify to Old Streambed on Mars

Detailed analysis and review have borne out researchers' initial interpretation of pebble-containing slabs that NASA's Mars rover Curiosity investigated last year: They are part of an ancient streambed.

The rocks are the first ever found on Mars that contain streambed gravels. The sizes and shapes of the gravels embedded in these conglomerate rocks -- from the size of sand particles to the size of golf balls -- enabled researchers to calculate the depth and speed of the water that once flowed at this location.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-181

[Rick]

Mars Rover Curiosity Begins Trek Toward Mount Sharp

With drives on July 4 and July 7, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has departed its last science target in the "Glenelg" area and commenced a many-month overland journey to the base of the mission's main destination, Mount Sharp.

The rover finished close-up investigation of a target sedimentary outcrop called "Shaler" last week. On July 4, it drove 59 feet (18 meters) away from Shaler. On July 7, a second drive added another 131 feet (40 meters) on the trip toward a destination about 5 miles (8 kilometers) away, the entry to the lower layers of Mount Sharp.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-215