[meteorite-list] New Mars Rover Beams Back Images Showing its Descent

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 08:49:48 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201208071549.q77FnmXn016022_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-233

New Mars Rover Beams Back Images Showing its Descent
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 06, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - Earlier today, just hours after NASA's Curiosity
rover landed on Mars, a select group of images taken by the onboard Mars
Descent Imager, or MARDI, were beamed back to Earth. The 297 color,
low-resolution images, provide a glimpse of the rover's descent into
Gale Crater. They are a preview of the approximately 1,504 images of
descent currently held in the rover's onboard memory. When put together
in highest resolution, the resulting video is expected to depict the
rover's descent from the moment the entry system's heat shield is
released through touchdown.

"The image sequence received so far indicates Curiosity had, as
expected, a very exciting ride to the surface," said Mike Malin, imaging
scientist for the Mars Science Lab mission from Malin Space Systems in
San Diego. "But as dramatic as they are, there is real other-world
importance to obtaining them. These images will help the mission
scientists interpret the rover's surroundings, the rover drivers in
planning for future drives across the surface, as well as assist
engineers in their design of forthcoming landing systems for Mars or
other worlds."

The image of the heat shield falling away is online at:
http://1.usa.gov/RSVufL .
The MARDI sequence is online at: http://1.usa.gov/MZqGxv .

The MARDI camera is located on the chassis of the Curiosity rover. Just
before the heat shield fell away, MARDI began its imaging task. The
images selected for early downlink to Earth were taken at different
points in Curiosity's final descent toward the surface. One of the
earliest images shows the entry vehicle's heat shield 50 feet (15
meters) and falling away after separating from the vehicle three seconds
before. A set of images demonstrates some of the gyrations Curiosity
went through while on the parachute. Another remarkable set of images
depicts the final moments leading up to landing, where the exhaust from
four of the descent stage's 742 pounds of thrust rockets billow up dust
from the Martian surface.

"A good comparison is to that grainy onboard film from Apollo 11 when
they were about to land on the moon," said Malin.

Those MARDI images downlinked so far are low-resolution thumbnails, 192
by 144 pixels. In the months ahead, as communications between rover and
Earth become more robust, full-frame images 1,600 by 1,200 pixels in
size, are expected to provide the most complete and dramatic imagery of
a planetary landing in the history of exploration.

The mission also released a higher-resolution Hazcam image of their
target, the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater informally titled
Mount Sharp.

The new image, taken by Curiosity's black-and-white Hazard Avoidance
Cameras - or Hazcams - can be found at: http://1.usa.gov/OLB3B5 .

Curiosity, NASA's latest contribution to the Martian landscape, landed
at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (05:32 on Aug. 6, EDT) near the foot of a
mountain three miles tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles in diameter.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, provided MARDI, as well as three
other cameras on Curiosity.

For more information on the mission, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-6278 / 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2012-233
Received on Tue 07 Aug 2012 11:49:48 AM PDT