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by **CountD** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 1:17 pm

I love the newspiece from tv- it's like they wanted it to land on Marvin Martian's house.

'NASA's latest rover lands.....and we don't really see much....YET!"

total time of piece: 5 seconds.

by **sdsichero** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:32 am

Curiosity Rover in Good Health on Martian Surface

by **sdsichero** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:33 am

by **sdsichero** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:15 pm

Looks like a hazy day on Mars

Curiosity’s First Color Photo Shows Red Rim of Gale Crater
(weird the permalink to the article itself does not work)

by **sdsichero** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 6:13 pm

High-definition video of Curiosity Mars landing is latest boon for rover fans

by **sdsichero** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 6:17 pm

Mars Curiosity rover leaves coded tracks on first test drive

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has left its first tracks in the Martian soil, imprinting the coded mark of its maker in its trail.

On Wednesday, the car-size, six-wheeled rover took its first test drive since arriving on the Red Planet more than two weeks ago. Its drivers back on Earth ordered Curiosity to roll forward about 15 feet, (4.5 meters), turn right and then back up about 8 feet (2.5 m), such that when the robot stopped it was positioned to the left and roughly perpendicular to where it touched down inside Mars' Gale Crater.

The track pattern — dot-dash-dash-dash, dot-dash-dash-dot, dot-dash-dot-dot (".--- .--. .-..") — spells out "JPL" in Morse code, which translates letters and numbers into a series of short ("dot") and long ("dash") signals.

Curiosity's signature wheel-print was a nod to NASA's lead center for unmanned planetary exploration, which built the rover and now commands it as Curiosity prepares to explore Mars in search of conditions habitable to past or present life.

The dashes and dots are more than just an autograph on the ground. They serve as "visual odometry" marks, which allow Curiosity's engineers to determine the position and orientation of the rover, as well as how far it traveled, by analyzing images of its tracks.

"We have intentionally put holes in the wheels to leave a unique track on Mars," Heverly said. "So if we are in sand dunes where we don't have lots of rock features around us, we can use those patterns to do our visual odometry."

In addition to the Morse code JPL, Curiosity's wheels also feature a zigzag cleat pattern.