Curiosity Spotted on Parachute by Orbiter
NASA's
Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5
PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was
listening to transmissions from the rover. Curiosity and its parachute
are in the center of the white box; the inset image is a cutout of the
rover stretched to avoid saturation. The rover is descending toward the
etched plains just north of the sand dunes that fringe "Mt. Sharp." From
the perspective of the orbiter, the parachute and Curiosity are flying
at an angle relative to the surface, so the landing site does not appear
directly below the rover.
The parachute appears fully inflated
and performing perfectly. Details in the parachute, such as the band
gap at the edges and the central hole, are clearly seen. The cords
connecting the parachute to the back shell cannot be seen, although they
were seen in the image of NASA's Phoenix lander descending, perhaps due
to the difference in lighting angles. The bright spot on the back shell
containing Curiosity might be a specular reflection off of a shiny
area. Curiosity was released from the back shell sometime after this
image was acquired.
This view is one product from an
observation made by HiRISE targeted to the expected location of
Curiosity about one minute prior to landing. It was captured in HiRISE
CCD RED1, near the eastern edge of the swath width (there is a RED0 at
the very edge). This means that the rover was a bit further east or
downrange than predicted.
The image scale is 13.2 inches (33.6 centimeters) per pixel .
HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE
camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.,
Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA
NASA's Curiosity Rover Caught in the Act of Landing
PASADENA,
Calif. -- An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured
the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot (almost 16
meter)-wide parachute as it descended toward its landing site at Gale
Crater Sunday.
"If HiRISE took the image one second before or
one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian
landscape," said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "When you consider
that we have been working on this sequence since March and had to upload
commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being
taken, you begin to realize how challenging this picture was to obtain."
The image of Curiosity on its parachute can be found at:
The image was taken while MRO was 211 miles (340 kilometers) away from
the parachuting rover. Curiosity and its rocket-propelled backpack,
contained within the conical-shaped back shell, had not deployed yet. At
the time, Curiosity was about two miles (three kilometers) above the
Martian surface.
"Guess you could consider us the closest
thing to paparazzi on Mars," said Milkovich. "We definitely caught
NASA's newest celebrity in the act."
Curiosity, NASA's latest
contribution to the Martian landscape, landed at 10:32 p.m. PDT Aug. 5
(1:32 a.m. EDT Aug. 6) near the foot of a three-mile tall mountain
inside Gale Crater, which is 96 miles in diameter.
In other
Curiosity news, one part of the rover team at JPL continues to review
the data from Sunday night's landing while another continues to prepare
the 1-ton mobile laboratory for its future explorations of Gale Crater.
One key assignment given to Curiosity for its first full day on Mars is
to raise its high-gain antenna. Using this antenna will increase the
data rate the rover can communicate directly with Earth. The mission
will use relays to orbiters as the primary method for sending data home
because that method is much more energy efficient for the rover.
Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as
large as the science payloads on the 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 is 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 JPL for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. For more information on the mission, visit:
and
Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
and
HiRISE 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. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, built the
orbiter.
For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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