Watch NASA's Next Mars Rover Being Built Via Live 'Curiosity Cam'

Curiosity Cam takes you inside the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., so you can watch the next Mars rover being built.Technicians assembling and testing the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, are covered head-to-toe in "bunny suits." These white smocks, booties and facemasks help protect against Earthly contaminants hitching a ride to Mars.The camera may be turned off periodically for maintenance. The rover may occasionally be out of view as it is moved around the clean room. When Curiosity Cam is off air, you will see a slideshow of Mars and rover images.Engineers ready the rover for space by taking it for a spin.Curiosity's stunt double takes a whirl around the Mars Yard.

Next Mars Rover Gets a Test Taste of Mars Conditions - 03.18.11

A space-simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is temporary home this month for the Curiosity rover, which will land on Mars next year.

Tests inside the 25-foot-diameter chamber (7.6-meters) are putting the rover through various sequences in environmental conditions resembling Martian surface conditions. After the chamber's large door was sealed last week, air was pumped out to near-vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit), and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars.

Images of Curiosity in the chamber just before the door was sealed are at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13805 and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13806 .

Other portions of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, including the cruise stage, descent stage and backshell, remain in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where Curiosity was assembled and where the rover will return after the simulation-chamber tests. In coming months, those flight system components and the rover will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final preparations before the launch period of Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011.

The mission will use Curiosity to study one of the most intriguing places on Mars -- still to be selected from among four finalist landing-site candidates. It will study whether a selected area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed.



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Advanced NASA Instrument Gets Close-up on Mars Rocks - 02.18.11

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will carry a next generation, onboard "chemical element reader" to measure the chemical ingredients in Martian rocks and soil. The instrument is one of 10 that will help the rover in its upcoming mission to determine the past and present habitability of a specific area on the Red Planet. Launch is scheduled between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, with landing in August 2012.

The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument, designed by physics professor Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, uses the power of alpha particles, or helium nuclei, and X-rays to bombard a target, causing the target to give off its own characteristic alpha particles and X-ray radiation. This radiation is "read by" an X-ray detector inside the sensor head, which reveals which elements and how much of each are in the rock or soil.

Identifying the elemental composition of lighter elements such as sodium, magnesium or aluminum, as well as heavier elements like iron, nickel or zinc, will help scientists identify the building blocks of the Martian crust. By comparing these findings with those of previous Mars rover findings, scientists can determine if any weathering has taken place since the rock formed ages ago.

All NASA Mars rovers have carried a similar instrument – Pathfinder's rover Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, and now Curiosity, too. Improvements have been made with each generation, but the basic design of the instrument has remained the same.

"APXS was modified for Mars Science Laboratory to be faster so it could make quicker measurements. On the Mars Exploration Rovers [Spirit and Opportunity] it took us five to 10 hours to get information that we will now collect in two to three hours," said Gellert, the intrument's principal investigator. "We hope this will help us to investigate more samples."



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Engineers test the first-of-its-kind landing system on NASA's next Mars rover.

NASA Mars Rover Will Check for Ingredients of Life - 01.18.11

PASADENA, Calif. -- Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA's next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean-room workers installed it into the rover.

The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all-covering protective garb for these specialized workers than was needed for the building of NASA's earlier Mars rovers.

The instrument is Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. At the carefully selected landing site for the Mars rover named Curiosity, one of SAM's key jobs will be to check for carbon-containing compounds called organic molecules, which are among the building blocks of life on Earth. The clean-room suits worn by Curiosity's builders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are just part of the care being taken to keep biological material from Earth from showing up in results from SAM.

Organic chemicals consist of carbon and hydrogen and, in many cases, additional elements. They can exist without life, but life as we know it cannot exist without them. SAM can detect a fainter trace of organics and identify a wider variety of them than any instrument yet sent to Mars. It also can provide information about other ingredients of life and clues to past environments.

Researchers will use SAM and nine other science instruments on Curiosity to study whether one of the most intriguing areas on Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for life and favorable for preserving evidence about whether life has ever existed there. NASA will launch Curiosity from Florida between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, as part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's spacecraft. The spacecraft will deliver the rover to the Martian surface in August 2012. The mission plan is to operate Curiosity on Mars for two years.



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NASA's Next Mars Rover to Zap Rocks With Laser - 12.22.10

A rock-zapping laser instrument on NASA's next Mars rover has roots in a demonstration that Roger Wiens saw 13 years ago in a colleague's room at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on the rover Curiosity can hit rocks with a laser powerful enough to excite a pinhead-size spot into a glowing, ionized gas. ChemCam then observes the flash through a telescope and analyzes the spectrum of light to identify the chemical elements in the target.

That information about rocks or patches of soil up to about 7 meters (23 feet) away will help the rover team survey the rover's surroundings and choose which targets to drill into, or scoop up, for additional analysis by other instruments on Curiosity. With the 10 science instruments on the rover, the team will assess whether any environments in the landing area have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether life existed. In late 2011, NASA will launch Curiosity and the other parts of the flight system, delivering the rover to the surface of Mars in August 2012.

Wiens, a geochemist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, serves as ChemCam's principal investigator. An American and French team that he leads proposed the instrument during NASA's 2004 open competition for participation in the Mars Science Laboratory project, whose rover has since been named Curiosity.

In 1997, while working on an idea for using lasers to investigate the moon, Wiens visited a chemistry laboratory building where a colleague, Dave Cremers, had been experimenting with a different laser technique. Cremers set up a cigar-size laser powered by a little 9-volt radio battery and pointed at a rock across the room.



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Camera on Curiosity's Arm Will Magnify Clues in Rocks - 11.16.10

PASADENA, Calif. -- More than one million people have watched assembly and testing of NASA's next Mars rover via a live webcam since it went online in October.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, is being tested and assembled in a clean room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The webcam, affectionately dubbed "Curiosity Cam," shows engineers and technicians clad in head-to-toe white smocks working on the rover.

Metrics from the webcam's hosting platform, Ustream, showed more than one million unique viewers spent more than 400,000 hours watching Curiosity Cam between Oct. 21 and Nov. 23. There have been more than 2.3 million viewer sessions.

The camera is mounted in the viewing gallery of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL. While the gallery is a regular stop on JPL's public tour, Curiosity Cam allows visitors from around the world to see NASA engineers at work without traveling to Pasadena.

Viewers from Chile, Japan, Turkey, Spain, Mexico and the United Kingdom have sent good wishes and asked questions in the chat box that accompanies the Curiosity Cam webstream. At scheduled times, viewers can interact with each other and JPL staff. The chat schedule is updated weekdays at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

Months of assembly and testing remain before the car-sized rover is ready for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The rover and spacecraft components will ship to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida next spring. The launch will occur between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. Curiosity will arrive on Mars in August 2012.

The rover is one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed. Curiosity is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous Mars rovers. It will carry a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Curiosity will investigate whether the landing region had environments favorable for supporting microbial life. It will also look for environments that have been favorable for preserving evidence about whether life existed.



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Spain Supplies Weather Station for Next Mars Rover - 11.30.10

The first instrument from Spain for a mission to Mars will provide daily weather reports from the Red Planet. Expect extremes.

Major goals for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory include assessing the modern environment in its landing area, as well as clues to environments billions of years ago. The environment station from Spain will fill a central role in studying modern conditions by measuring daily and seasonal changes.

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station, or REMS, is one of 10 instruments in the mission's science payload. REMS uses sensors on the mast, on the deck and inside the body of the mission's car-size rover, Curiosity. Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation and Spain's Center for Industrial Technology Development supplied the instrument. Components were installed on Curiosity in September and are being tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

While most of Curiosity's electronics are sheltered for some protection from the Martian environment, the team that developed and built the environmental station needed to fashion external sensors that could tolerate the temperature extremes that some of them would be monitoring.

"That was our biggest engineering challenge," said REMS Principal Investigator Javier Gómez-Elvira, an aeronautical engineer with the Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain. "The sensors will get very cold and go through great changes in temperature every day." The Center for Astrobiology is affiliated with the Spanish National Research Council and the National Institute for Aerospace Technology.

The air temperature around the rover mast will likely drop to about minus 130 degrees Celsius (about minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit) some winter nights and climb to about minus 50 C (about minus 60 F) by 12 hours later. On warmer days, afternoon air temperatures could reach a balmy 10 to 30 C (50 to 86 F), depending on which landing site is selected.

Other challenges have included accounting for how the rover itself perturbs air movement, and keeping the entire weather station's mass to just 1.3 kilograms (2.9 pounds).



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PASADENA, Calif. – Engineers are testing new software for NASA's Mars Curiosity mission.The Mars Science Laboratory will launch from Florida in late 2011 and land on Mars in August 2012. Curiosity will study whether the landing region has ever had environmental conditions favorable for life and for preserving evidence of life if it once existed.JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the mission is online at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Camera on Curiosity's Arm Will Magnify Clues in Rocks - 11.16.10

NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, will wield an arm-mounted magnifying camera similar to one on the Mars Rover Opportunity, which promptly demonstrated its importance for reading environmental history from rocks at its landing site in 2004.

Within a few weeks after the landing, that camera at the end of Opportunity's arm revealed details of small spheres embedded in the rocks, hollows where crystals had dissolved, and fine layering shaped like smiles. These details all provided information about the site's wet past.

The camera installed on the end of Curiosity's arm this month is the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI. Its work will include the same type of close-up inspections accomplished by the comparable camera on Opportunity, but MAHLI has significantly greater capabilities: full-color photography, adjustable focus, lights, and even video. Also, it sits on a longer arm, one that can hold MAHLI up higher than the cameras on the rover's mast. MAHLI will use those capabilities as one of 10 science instruments to study the area of Mars where NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission lands Curiosity in August 2012.

The Mars Hand Lens Imager takes its name from the magnifying tool that every field geologist carries. Ken Edgett of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, is the principal investigator for the instrument. He said, "When you're out in the field and you want to get a quick idea what minerals are in a rock, you pick up the rock in one hand and hold your hand lens in the other hand. You look through the lens at the colors, the crystals, the cleavage planes: features that help you diagnose what minerals you see.



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Sensor on Mars Rover to Measure Radiation Environment - 11.09.10

About eight months before the NASA rover Curiosity touches down on Mars in August 2012, the mission's science measurements will begin much closer to Earth.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission's Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, will monitor naturally occurring radiation that can be unhealthful if absorbed by living organisms. It will do so on the surface of Mars, where there has never before been such an instrument, as well as during the trip between Mars and Earth.

RAD's measurements on Mars will help fulfill the mission's key goals of assessing whether Curiosity's landing region on Mars has had conditions favorable for life and for preserving evidence about life. This instrument also will do an additional job. Unlike any of the nine others in this robotic mission's science payload, RAD has a special task and funding from the part of NASA that is planning human exploration beyond Earth orbit. It will aid design of human missions by reducing uncertainty about how much shielding from radiation future astronauts will need. The measurements between Earth and Mars, as well as the measurements on Mars, will serve that purpose.

"No one has fully characterized the radiation environment on the surface of another planet. If we want to send humans there, we need to do that," said RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler of the Boulder, Colo., branch of the Southwest Research Institute.

Whether the first destination for human exploration beyond the moon is an asteroid or Mars, the travelers will need protection from the radiation environment in interplanetary space. Hassler said, "The measurements we get during the cruise from Earth to Mars will help map the distribution of radiation throughout the solar system and be useful in mission design for wherever we send astronauts."

RAD will monitor high-energy atomic and subatomic particles coming from the sun, from distant supernovas and from other sources. These particles constitute the radiation that could be harmful to any microbes near the surface of Mars or to astronauts on a Mars mission. Galactic cosmic rays, coming from supernova explosions and other events extremely far from our own solar system, are a variable shower of charged particles. In addition, the sun itself spews electrons, protons and heavier ions in "solar particle events" fed by solar flares and ejections of matter from the sun's corona. Astronauts might need to move into havens with extra shielding on an interplanetary spacecraft or on Mars during solar particle events.



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Watch Construction of NASA's New Mars Rover Live on the Web - 10.21.10

PASADENA, Calif. -- A newly installed webcam is giving the public an opportunity to watch technicians assemble and test the next NASA Mars rover, one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, is in a clean room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The webcam, affectionately called "Curiosity Cam," provides the video feed, without audio, from a viewing gallery above the clean room floor. The video will be supplemented periodically by live Web chats featuring Curiosity team members answering questions about the rover. Currently, work in the clean room begins at 8 a.m. PDT Monday through Friday.

Assembly engineers and technicians have been busy adding new avionics and instruments to the rover. Beginning Friday, viewers will see the assembly team carefully install the rover's suspension system and its six wheels. On Tuesday, the rover's 7-foot-long robotic arm will be carefully lifted and attached to the front of the rover.

Continuous live video of rover construction is available at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl . The feed is also available at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/building_curiosity.html and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/ .

The camera shows a portion of the clean room that is typically active; but the rover, spacecraft components and technicians may move out of view as work shifts to other areas of the room. When activity takes place in other testing facilities around JPL, the clean room may be empty. The camera may also be turned off periodically for maintenance or technical issues.

Months of assembly and testing remain before the car-sized rover is ready for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The rover and spacecraft components will ship to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in spring of 2011. The launch will occur between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. Curiosity will arrive on Mars in August 2012.

Curiosity is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers with a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on NASA's Spirit and Opportunity. The new, large rover will investigate whether the landing region has had environments favorable for supporting microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether life existed on the Red Planet.

For information and news about Curiosity, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ or http://www.nasa.gov/msl

Social media audiences can learn more about the mission on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MarsCuriosity and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity

Mobile Mars Lab Almost Ready for Curiosity Rover - 10.08.10

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite has completed assembly at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and is nearly ready for a December delivery to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where it will be installed into the Curiosity rover.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission will use SAM and other instruments on Curiosity to examine whether an intriguing area of Mars has had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and favorable for preserving evidence of life, if it existed. Launch is scheduled for late 2011, with landing in August 2012.

SAM will explore molecular and elemental chemistry relevant to life. It will analyze samples of Martian rock and soil to assess carbon chemistry through a search for organic compounds, and to look for clues about planetary change.

SAM is in flight configuration, meaning its instruments are in the condition they will be in during launch and are ready to begin operations on Mars. The instrument suite (a mass spectrometer, gas chromatograph and tunable laser spectrometer) started final environmental testing this week, which includes vibration and thermal testing to ensure SAM can survive the launch, deep space flight and conditions on Mars.

Link to full press release: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/sam-configure.html

PASADENA, Calif. -- The NASA Mars Science Laboratory Project's rover, Curiosity, will carry a newly delivered laser instrument named ChemCam to reveal what elements are present in rocks and soils on Mars up to 7 meters (23 feet) away from the rover.

The laser zaps a pinhead-sized area on the target, vaporizing it. A spectral analyzer then examines the flash of light produced to identify what elements are present.

The completed and tested instrument has been shipped to JPL from Los Alamos for installation onto the Curiosity rover at JPL.

ChemCam was conceived, designed and built by a U.S.-French team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (the French national space agency); and the Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements at the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France.

PASADENA, Calif. – Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory put Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, through an obstacle course to test its mobility system. The rover has the same classic six-wheel suspension system used by Spirit and Opportunity, but unlike its predecessors, the mobility system will also serve as its landing gear.The Mars Science Laboratory will launch from Florida in late 2011 and land on Mars in August 2012. Curiosity will study whether the landing region has ever had environmental conditions favorable for life and for preserving evidence of life if it once existed.JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the mission is online at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Five Things About NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover - 09.16.10

Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term program of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in late 2011, and arrive at an intriguing region of Mars in August 2012. The goal of Curiosity, a rolling laboratory, is to assess whether Mars ever had an environment capable of supporting microbial life and conditions favorable for preserving clues about life, if it existed. This will help us better understand whether life could have existed on the Red Planet and, if so, where we might look for it in the future.

How Big Is It?: The Mini Cooper-sized rover is much bigger than its rover predecessors, Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner. Curiosity is twice as long (about 2.8 meters, or 9 feet) and four times as heavy as Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in 2004. Sojourner, about the size of a microwave oven, landed in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Landing--Where and How: In November 2008, possible landing sites were narrowed to four finalists, all linked to ancient wet conditions. NASA will select a site believed to be among the most likely places to hold a geological record of a favorable environment for life. The site must also meet safe-landing criteria. The landing system is similar to a sky crane heavy-lift helicopter. After a parachute slows the rover's descent toward Mars, a rocket-powered backpack will lower the rover on a tether during the final moments before landing. This method allows landing a very large, heavy rover on Mars (instead of the airbag landing systems of previous Mars rovers). Other innovations enable a landing within a smaller target area than previous Mars missions. Toolkit: Curiosity will use 10 science instruments to examine rocks, soil and the atmosphere. A laser will vaporize patches of rock from a distance, and another instrument will search for organic compounds. Other instruments include mast-mounted cameras to study targets from a distance, arm-mounted instruments to study targets they touch, and deck-mounted analytical instruments to determine the composition of rock and soil samples acquired with a powdering drill and a scoop. Big Wheels: Each of Curiosity's six wheels has an independent drive motor. The two front and two rear wheels also have individual steering motors. This steering allows the rover to make 360-degree turns in-place on the Mars surface. The wheels' diameter is double the wheel diameter on Spirit and Opportunity, which will help Curiosity roll over obstacles up to 75 centimeters (30 inches) high. Rover Power: A nuclear battery will enable Curiosity to operate year-round and farther from the equator than would be possible with only solar power.

Strong Robotic Arm Extends From Next Mars Rover - 09.16.10

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been exercising its robotic arm since last month, when the arm was first fastened to the rover.

In the long run, watch for this long and strong arm to become the signature apparatus of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. After landing in August 2012, the mission will rely on it for repeated research activities. One set of moves crucial to the mission's success has never been tried before on Mars: pulling pulverized samples from the interior of Martian rocks and placing them into laboratory instruments inside the rover.

Engineers and technicians are putting the arm through a range of motions this month in the clean room where Curiosity is being assembled and tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"We're fine-tuning the ability to make the arm go exactly where we want it to go," said JPL's Brett Kennedy, cognizant engineer for the robotic arm. "Next, we'll start pushing on things with the arm."

The arm can extend about 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) from the front of the rover body. Still to be added: the turret at the end that holds a percussive drill and other tools weighing a total of about 33 kilograms (73 pounds).

"This arm is strong, but still needs to move accurately enough to drop an aspirin tablet into a thimble," Kennedy said.

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PASADENA, Calif. -- The rover Curiosity, which NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will place on Mars in August 2012, has been rolling over ramps in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to test its mobility system.

Curiosity uses the same type of six-wheel, rocker-bogie suspension system as previous Mars rovers, for handling uneven terrain during drives. Its wheels are half a meter (20 inches) in diameter, twice the height of the wheels on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers currently on Mars.

Launch of the Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled for 2011 during the period from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18. The mission is designed to operate Curiosity on Mars for a full Martian year, which equals about two Earth years.

A public lecture by Mars Science Laboratory Chief Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will take place at JPL on Thursday, Sept. 16, beginning at 7 p.m. PDT Time (10 p.m. EDT). Live video streaming, supplemented by a real-time web chat to take public questions, will air on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl .

JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the mission is online at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .



This video shows the first test drive of the next Mars Rover, Curiosity, in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on July 23, 2010. Engineers in "bunny suits" conducted the test, while proud team members watched from a viewing gallery. Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada explains the process.

› Download video This video shows the first test drive of the next Mars Rover, Curiosity, in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on July 23, 2010. Engineers in "bunny suits" conducted the test, while proud team members watched from a viewing gallery. Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada explains the process.





This video shows engineers and technicians carefully attaching the "head" of the Mars Curiosity rover to its "body" in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover that will be on Mars two years from now, has been flexing the robotic arm that spacecraft workers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached to the rover body in August 2010.The arm will be crucial for putting samples of soil or powdered rock into analytical instruments inside the rover. A camera and spectrometer to be installed at the end of the arm will also examine rocks and soils in place.The Mars Science Laboratory will launch from Florida in November or December 2011 and land in August 2012 at one of the most intriguing sites on Mars. The landing site is still to be chosen from four finalists. Once on Mars, Curiosity will study whether the landing region has ever had environmental conditions favorable for life and favorable for preserving evidence of life if it existed.Learn more about Curiosity at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ Like proud parents savoring their baby's very first steps, mission team members gathered in a gallery above a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch the Mars Curiosity rover roll for the first time.Engineers and technicians wore "bunny suits" while guiding Curiosity through its first steps, or more precisely, its first roll on the clean room floor. The rover moved forward and backward about 1 meter (3.3 feet).Mars Science Laboratory (aka Curiosity) is scheduled to launch in fall 2011 and land on the Red Planet in August 2012. Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars. It will carry 10 instruments that will help search an intriguing region of the Red Planet for two things: 1. Environments where life might have existed 2. The capacity of those environments to preserve evidence of past lifeLearn more about Curiosity at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ Talk about a growth-spurt. In one week, Curiosity grew by approximately 1 meter (3.5 feet) when spacecraft technicians and engineers attached the rover's neck and head (called the Remote Sensing Mast) to its body. At around 2 meters (about 7 feet) tall, the next rover to Mars now stands head and shoulders above the rest.Mounted on Curiosity's mast are two navigation cameras (Navcams), two mast cameras (Mastcam), and the laser-carrying chemistry camera (ChemCam).

While it now has a good head on its shoulders, Curiosity's "eyes" (the Mastcam), have been blindfolded in a protective silvery material. The Mastcam, containing two digital cameras, will soon be unveiled, so engineers can test its picture-taking abilities.

Up next today (July 23), the towering rover will take its first baby steps: a slow roll on the floor of the clean room where it's being built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Watch Curiosity's progress live from the clean room on Ustream until 3:30 p.m. PDT today: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl .

Learn more about Curiosity at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .



› Full image and caption This Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera will fly on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems





This video clip shows engineers in the JPL clean room where the Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity rover, is being assembled as they put all six wheels into motion for the first time.

A downward-pointing camera on the front-left side of NASA's Curiosity rover will give adventure fans worldwide an unprecedented sense of riding a spacecraft to a landing on Mars.The Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, will start recording high-resolution video about two minutes before landing in August 2012. Initial frames will glimpse the heat shield falling away from beneath the rover, revealing a swath of Martian terrain below illuminated in afternoon sunlight. The first scenes will cover ground several kilometers (a few miles) across. Successive images will close in and cover a smaller area each second.The full-color video will likely spin, then shake, as the Mars Science Laboratory mission's parachute, then its rocket-powered backpack, slow the rover's descent. The left-front wheel will pop into view when Curiosity extends its mobility and landing gear.The spacecraft's own shadow, unnoticeable at first, will grow in size and slide westward across the ground. The shadow and rover will meet at a place that, in the final moments, becomes the only patch of ground visible, about the size of a bath towel and underneath the rover.Dust kicked up by the rocket engines during landing may swirl as the video ends and Curiosity's surface mission can begin.All of this, recorded at about four frames per second and close to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels per frame, will be stored safely into the Mars Descent Imager's own flash memory during the landing. But the camera's principal investigator, Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, and everyone else will need to be patient. Curiosity will be about 250 million kilometers (about 150 million miles) from Earth at that point. It will send images and other data to Earth via relay by one or two Mars orbiters, so the daily data volume will be limited by the amount of time the orbiters are overhead each day."We will get it down in stages," said Malin. "First we'll have thumbnails of the descent images, with only a few frames at full scale."Subsequent downlinks will deliver additional frames, selected based on what the thumbnail versions show. The early images will begin to fulfill this instrument's scientific functions. "I am really looking forward to seeing this movie. We have been preparing for it a long time," Malin said. The lower-resolution version from thumbnail images will be comparable to a YouTube video in image quality. The high-definition version will not be available until the full set of images can be transmitted to Earth, which could take weeks, or even months, sharing priority with data from other instruments."The Mars Descent Imager will provide the Mars Science Laboratory team with information about the landing site and its surroundings. This will aid interpretation of the rover's ground-level views and planning of initial drives. Hundreds of the images taken by the camera will show features smaller than what can be discerned in images taken from orbit."Each of the 10 science instruments on the rover has a role in making the mission successful," said John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, chief scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory. "This one will give us a sense of the terrain around the landing site and may show us things we want to study. Information from these images will go into our initial decisions about where the rover will go."The nested set of images from higher altitude to ground level will enable pinpointing Curiosity's location even before an orbiter can photograph the rover on the surface.Malin said, "Within the first day or so, we'll know where we are and what's near us. MARDI doesn't do much for six-month planning -- we'll use orbital data for that -- but it will be important for six-day and 16-day planning."In addition, combining information from the descent images with information from the spacecraft's motion sensors will enable calculating wind speeds affecting the spacecraft on its way down, an important atmospheric science measurement. The descent data will later serve in designing and testing future landing systems for Mars that could add more control for hazard avoidance.After landing, the Mars Descent Imager will offer the capability to obtain detailed images of ground beneath the rover, for precise tracking of its movements or for geologic mapping. The science team will decide whether or not to use that capability. Each day of operations on Mars will require choices about how to budget power, data and time.Last month, spacecraft engineers and technicians re-installed the Mars Descent Imager onto Curiosity for what is expected to be the final time, as part of assembly and testing of the rover and other parts of the Mars Science Laboratory flight system at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Besides the rover itself, the flight system includes the cruise stage for operations between Earth and Mars, and the descent stage for getting the rover from the top of the Martian atmosphere safely to the ground.Malin Space Science Systems delivered the Mars Descent Imager in 2008, when NASA was planning a 2009 launch for the mission. This camera shares many design features, including identical electronic detectors, with two other science instruments the same company is providing for Curiosity: the Mast Camera and the Mars Hand Lens Imager. The company also provided descent imagers for NASA's Mars Polar Lander, launched in 1999, and Phoenix Mars Lander, launched in 2007. However, the former craft was lost just before landing and the latter did not use its descent imager due to concern about the spacecraft's data-handling capabilities during crucial moments just before landing.

The wheels that will touch down on Mars in 2012 are several rotations closer to spinning on the rocky trails of Mars.

This video clip of the test shows engineers in the JPL clean room where the rover is being assembled as they put all six wheels into motion for the first time.

Engineers raised the rover just as a car mechanic would hoist a car to check the wheels, and started the "engine" to get the wheels rotating. The wheel mobility system has 10 motors in all--four for steering the rover and six for driving. During this test, all 10 motors ran in every direction. Each wheel spun forward and backwards.

Next up for Curiosity is a series of "tune-ups" to prep the rover for driving.

Learn more about Curiosity at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .





Assembly work on Mars rover Curiosity.

Six of them! And these wheels aren’t meant for the concrete roadways, bustling freeways, or sleepy highways—they’re destined for off-roading on Mars.

The Curiosity rover team just installed six shiny aluminum wheels on the rover, giving the rover its “legs.” Unlike previous missions that used air bags for landing on the Martian surface, Curiosity is touching down wheels first!

The rover, which is about the size of an SUV, has wheels that are 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter, making them bigger than a car tire. Each wheel has its own motor, giving the rover independent six-wheel drive—that’s better than an average car with two-wheel drive. But engineers didn’t stop there; the rover can swerve and turn in place a full 360 degrees.

Now, that’s cool but you may be wondering, how’s the ride? The suspension system is based on the “rocker-bogie” system, which was used on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and the earlier Pathfinder missions. This system allows the rover to roll over large rocks and dips without tipping over. The rover can also climb steep hills, up to 45 degrees.

Did you know that the rover has something in common with World Cup soccer players? Yes, the rover wheels have “cleats,” similar to those soccer players have on their shoes. These cleats provide grip and prevent the rover from slipping while going over rocks or climbing up hills of soft sand.

With the wheels in place, Curiosity is one step closer to rolling on Mars.

Follow its journey as it embarks on one of the most exciting expeditions of our time: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .





Did Mars once have an environment capable of supporting life? NASA's next rover -- the Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, will further unravel that mystery. The rover carries a whole laboratory with it wherever it goes and is much bigger than any rover sent before -- about the size of a car.

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, is sitting pretty on a set of spiffy new wheels that would be the envy of any car show on Earth.

The wheels and a suspension system were added this week by spacecraft technicians and engineers. These new and important touches are a key step in assembling and testing the flight system in advance of a planned 2011 launch.

Curiosity, centerpiece of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, is a six-wheeler and uses a rocker-bogie suspension system like its smaller predecessors: Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner. Each wheel has its own drive motor, and the corner wheels also have independent steering motors. Unlike earlier Mars rovers, Curiosity will also use its mobility system as a landing gear when the mission's rocket-powered descent stage lowers the rover directly onto the Martian surface on a tether in August 2012.

In coming months at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mobility system will get functional testing and be part of environmental testing of the rover. The mobility system will now stay on Curiosity through launch unless testing identifies a need for rework that would require it to be disassembled.

The mission will launch from Florida during the period Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011. Curiosity will examine an area of Mars for modern or ancient habitable environments, including any that may have also been favorable for preserving clues about life and environment, though this mission will not seek evidence of life. It will examine rocks, soil and atmosphere with a diverse payload of tools, including a laser to vaporize patches of rock from a distance and an instrument designed to test for organic compounds.

This Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera will fly on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

› Full image and caption This Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera will fly on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

NASA's Curiosity rover, coming together for a late 2011 launch to Mars, has a newly installed component: a key onboard X-ray instrument for helping the mission achieve its goals.

Researchers will use Curiosity in an intriguing area of Mars to search for modern or ancient habitable environments, including any that may have also been favorable for preserving clues about life and environment.

The team assembling and testing Curiosity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., fastened the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument inside the rover body on June 15. CheMin will identify the minerals in samples of powdered rock or soil that the rover's robotic arm will deliver to an input funnel.

"Minerals give us a record of what the environment was like at the time they were formed," said the principal investigator for CheMin, David Blake of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Temperature, pressure, and the chemical ingredients present -- including water -- determine what minerals form and how they are altered.

The instrument uses X-ray diffraction, a first for a mission to Mars and a more definitive method for identifying minerals than any instrument on previous missions. It supplements the diffraction measurements with X-ray fluorescence capability to garner further details of composition.

X-ray diffraction works by directing an X-ray beam at a sample and recording how the X-rays are scattered by the sample's atoms. All minerals are crystalline, and in crystalline materials, atoms are arranged in an orderly, periodic structure, causing the X-rays to be scattered at predictable angles. From those angles, researchers can deduce the spacing between planes of atoms in the crystal.

"You get a series of spacings and intensities for each mineral," Blake said. "It's more than a fingerprint because it not only provides definitive identification, but we know the reason for each pattern, right down to the atomic level."

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will send Curiosity to a place on Mars where water-related minerals have been detected by Mars orbiters. The rover's 10 science instruments will examine the site's modern environment and geological clues to its past environments. NASA's multi-step strategy might include potential future missions for bringing Mars samples to Earth for detailed analysis. One key goal for the Mars Science Laboratory mission is to identify a good hunting ground for rocks that could hold biosignatures -- evidence of life -- though this mission itself will not seek evidence of life.

On Earth, life has thrived for more than 3 billion years, but preserving evidence of life from the geologically distant past requires specific, unusual conditions.

Fossil insects encased in amber or mastodon skeletons immersed in tar pits are examples of how specific environments can store a record of ancient life by isolating it from normal decomposition. But Mars won't have insects or mastodons; if Mars has had any life forms at all, they were likely microbes. Understanding what types of environments may have preserved evidence of microbial life from billions of years ago, even on Earth, is still an emerging field of study. Some factors good for life are bad for preserving biosignatures. For example, life needs water, but organic compounds, the carbon-chemical ingredients of life, generally oxidize to carbon dioxide gas if not protected from water.

Some minerals detectable by CheMin, such as phosphates, carbonates, sulfates and silica, can help preserve biosignatures. Clay minerals trap and preserve organic compounds under some conditions. Some minerals that form when salty water evaporates can encase and protect organics, too. Other minerals that CheMin could detect might also have implications about past conditions favorable to life and to preservation of biosignatures.

"We'll finally have the ability to conduct a wide-ranging inventory of the minerals for one part of Mars," said John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, chief scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory. "This will be a big step forward. Whatever we learn about conditions for life, we'll also get a great benefit in learning about the early evolution of a planet."

Curiosity's 10 science instruments, with about 15 times more mass than the five-instrument science payload on either of the Mars rovers Spirit or Opportunity, provide complementary capabilities for meeting the mission's goals. Some will provide quicker evaluations of rocks when the rover drives to a new location, helping the science team choose which rocks to examine more thoroughly with CheMin and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment. SAM can identify organic compounds. Imaging information about the context and textures of rocks will augment information about the rocks' composition.

"CheMin will tell us the major minerals there without a lot of debate," said Jack Farmer of Arizona State University, Tempe, a member of the instrument's science team. "It won't necessarily reveal anything definitive about biosignatures, but it will help us select the rocks to check for organics. X-ray diffraction is the gold standard for mineralogy. Anyone who wants to determine the minerals in a rock on Earth takes it to an X-ray diffraction lab."

Blake began working 21 years ago on a compact X-ray diffraction instrument for use in planetary missions. His work with colleagues has resulted in commercial portable instruments for use in geological field work on Earth, as well as the CheMin instrument. The spinoff instruments have found innovative applications in screening for counterfeit pharmaceuticals in developing nations and analyzing archaeological finds.

CheMin is roughly a cube 25 centimeters (10 inches) on each side, weighing about 10 kilograms (22 pounds). It generates X-rays by aiming high-energy electrons at a target of cobalt, then directing the X-rays into a narrow beam. The detector is a charge-coupled device like the ones in electronic cameras, but sensitive to X-ray wavelengths and cooled to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit).

A sample wheel mounted between the X-ray source and detector holds 32 disc-shaped sample cells, each about the diameter of a shirt button and thickness of a business card, with transparent plastic walls. Rotating the wheel can position any cell into the X-ray beam. Five cells hold reference samples from Earth to help calibrate the instrument. The other 27 are reusable holders for Martian samples. Samples of gritty powder delivered by the robotic arm to CheMin's inlet funnel will each contain about as much material as in a baby aspirin.

Each CheMin analysis of a sample requires up to 10 hours of accumulating data while X-rays are hitting the sample. The time may be split into two or more nights of operation.

Besides X-ray diffraction, CheMin records X-ray fluorescence data from the analyzed material. X-ray fluorescence works by recording the secondary X-rays generated when the atoms in the sample are excited by the primary X-ray source. Different elements, when excited, emit fluorescent X-rays at different and characteristic energies, so this information indicates which elements are present. This compositional information will supplement similar data collected by the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on Curiosity's arm.

CheMin's team of scientists combines expertise in mineralogy, petrology, materials science, astrobiology and soil science, with experience studying terrestrial, lunar and Martian rocks.

The launch period for the Mars Science Laboratory will begin on Nov. 25, 2011, for a landing on Mars in August 2012. Blake's wish for results from the Martian rock data he's already been anticipating for more than two decades: "I hope we find something unexpected, something surprising."





NASA Dryden provided logistics and other support for a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory team on-site that tested the landing radar system for the next Mars rover mission, called the Mars Science Laboratory.

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center recently provided logistics and range support for a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that tested a landing radar system for the next Mars rover mission adjacent to Dryden's Edwards Air Force Base facilities.Testing for the JPL-managed Mars Science Laboratory or MSL project included suspending a full-scale engineering model of the MSL rover from a helicopter and flying pre-planned flight trajectories over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards to simulate the rover's descent stage carrying the rover to the surface of Mars. JPL engineers needed to verify that the radar will provide accurate altitude and velocity measurements at Mars and that the suspended rover will not confuse the ability of the descent stage's radar to accurately calculate the rover's descent speed for a safe, on-target landing."Dryden offers a unique location to perform testing of this kind," said Carrie Rhoades, the Dryden flight operations engineer managing the MSL project at Dryden. "We have restricted airspace and a large dry lakebed that is useful in simulating several Mars-like features. Dryden is also conveniently close to JPL, so troubleshooting the system and fixing any issues has been relatively easy to accomplish," she said.The helicopter, carrying the MSL radar on a special nose-mounted gimbal system, mimicked the MSL's descent stage on which the radar will be mounted during the mission to Mars. The unique, rocket-powered descent stage will lower the rover, named Curiosity, on cables directly to the planet's surface in a maneuver dubbed “skycrane.” The descent stage will then fly away to a preplanned crash after releasing the cables, leaving Curiosity with its wheels on the Martian surface, ready to begin its search for ancient habitats.“Our JPL team is thrilled to have accomplished this critical radar field test at Dryden,” said Steven Lee, MSL’s Guidance, Navigation, and Control Systems manager. “The large, flat expanse of Rogers Dry Lake provided an ideal venue for our initial tests. The Dryden team did a great job accommodating our logistical and flight support needs, from hangar space to flight clearances."Preliminary results indicate the radar performs as expected and we look forward to continuing our field tests at other Mars-like sites including Amboy Crater, Cadiz Sand Dunes, and Death Valley," Lee added.The new skycrane landing method was chosen for the next Mars mission because Curiosity will be the largest rover yet sent to Mars. It's too large for the airbag-cushioned landing method used by NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 and the twin Mars Exploration Rover landings in 2004. Also, the MSL mission has a requirement for landing at a more-precise point on Mars than previous rover missions, aiding in the selection of the landing concept.Starting in 2008, Dryden has flown an F/A-18 in a series of MSL developmental flights designed to collect environmental control system data to help validate the MSL radar system. In one flight series, the F/A-18 carried a Quick Test Experimental Pod housing the radar's environmental control hardware to an altitude of 47,000 feet and made a series of dives to simulate a high-speed entry into the Martian atmosphere. More of these flights are scheduled in the coming months to assist JPL in further verifying the MSL radar performance.Mars Science Lab mission components such as Curiosity, the descent stage, the cruise stage and the aeroshell are currently undergoing assembly and testing at JPL in Pasadena, Calif., in preparation for an autumn 2011 launch. Curiosity is scheduled to reach Mars in the summer of 2012.Wolfe Air Aviation, of Pasadena, Calif., provided their Eurocopter AS350 AStar helicopter and crew for the tests. The helicopter's Gyron gimbaled mounting system, provided by Nettman Systems International, is normally used to carry aerial video camera equipment for the motion picture industry.

Planners of NASA's next Mars mission have selected a flight schedule that will use favorable positions for two currently orbiting NASA Mars orbiters to obtain maximum information during descent and landing.

Continuing analysis of the geometry and communications options for the arrival at Mars have led planners for the Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, to choose an Earth-to-Mars trajectory that schedules launch between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. Landing will take place between Aug. 6 and Aug. 20, 2012. Due to an Earth-Mars planetary alignment, this launch period actually allows for a Mars arrival in the earlier portion of the landing dates under consideration.

"The key factor was a choice between different strategies for sending communications during the critical moments before and during touchdown," said Michael Watkins, mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The shorter trajectory is optimal for keeping both orbiters in view of Curiosity all the way to touchdown on the surface of Mars. The longer trajectory allows direct communication to Earth all the way to touchdown."

The simplicity of direct-to-Earth communication from Curiosity during landing has appeal to mission planners, in comparison to relying on communications relayed via NASA's Mars Odyssey, which has been orbiting Mars since 2001, and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, in operation since 2006. However, the direct-to-Earth option allows a communication rate equivalent to only about 1 bit per second, while the relay option allows about 8,000 bits or more per second.

Landing on Mars is always difficult, with success uncertain. After an unsuccessful attempted Mars landing in 1999 without definitive information on the cause of the mishap, NASA put a high priority on communication during subsequent Mars landings.

"It is important to capture high-quality telemetry to allow us to learn what happens during the entry, descent and landing, which is arguably the most challenging part of the mission," said Fuk Li, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at JPL. "The trajectory we have selected maximizes the amount of information we will learn to mitigate any problems."

Curiosity will use several innovations during entry into the Martian atmosphere, descent and landing in order to hit a relatively small target area on the surface and set down a rover too heavy for the cushioning air bags used in earlier Mars rover landings. In a "sky-crane" maneuver during the final minute of arrival, a rocket-powered descent stage will lower Curiosity on a tether for a wheels-down landing directly onto the surface.

Even though Curiosity won't be communicating directly with Earth at touchdown, data about the landing will reach Earth promptly. Odyssey will be in view of both Earth and Curiosity, in position to immediately forward to Earth the data stream it is receiving during the touchdown. Odyssey performed this type of "bent-pipe" relay during the May 25, 2008, arrival of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.

Curiosity will rove extensively on Mars, carrying an analytical laboratory and other instruments to examine a carefully selected landing area. It will investigate whether conditions there have favored development of microbial life and its preservation in the rock record. Plans call for the mission to operate on Mars for a full Martian year, which is equivalent to two Earth years.

Consideration of landing sites for the mission narrowed to four finalist candidates in November 2008. The candidate sites are still being analyzed for safety and science attributes.

Curiosity is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, in partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

More information about NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl.

This spring, engineers are testing a radar system that will serve during the next landing on Mars.

Recent tests included some near Lancaster, Calif., against a backdrop of blooming California poppy fields. In those tests, a helicopter carried an engineering test model of the landing radar for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on prescribed descent paths. The descents at different angles and from different heights simulated paths associated with specific candidate sites for the mission.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA, is in its assembly and testing phase, in advance of a launch in autumn 2011 and delivery of a rover named Curiosity to Mars in summer 2012.

During the final stage of the spacecraft's arrival at Mars in 2012, a rocket-powered descent stage will lower the rover on a tether directly to the ground. This rover is too big for the airbag-cushioned landing method used by NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 and Mars Exploration Rover landings in 2004.

At Mars, a radar on the descent stage will track the spacecraft's decreasing distance from the surface. Additional helicopter-flown testing of the mission's radar system will include checks of whether the suspended rover might confuse the radar about the speed of descent toward the ground.

Wolfe Air Aviation, of Pasadena, Calif., is providing the helicopter and flight services for the testing by a team of JPL engineers. The engineering test radar is affixed to a gimbal mounting at the front of the helicopter, which is more often used for aerial photography.

Malin Space Science Systems Inc., San Diego, has delivered the two cameras for the Mast Camera instrument that will be the science-imaging workhorse of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, to be launched next year. The instrument, called Mastcam, has been tested and is ready for installation onto the rover, named Curiosity, which is being built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.



The two component cameras have different fixed focal lengths: 34 millimeters and 100 millimeters (telephoto) and can provide high-definition color video. NASA is also providing funds for Malin to build an alternative version with zoom lenses on both cameras, in collaboration with movie producer James Cameron, a member of the Mastcam team. If the zoom pair can be completed in time for rover assembly and testing, the fixed-focal-length pair could be swapped out for them. Malin has also delivered the Mars Hand Lens Imager and the Mars Descent Imager for the Mars Science Laboratory.

For more information, see Malin Space Science Systems news release: http://www.msss.com/press_releases/mast_delivery/.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, has finished building and testing the heat shield for protecting the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project. This heat shield is even larger than the ones used for protecting Apollo astronauts as they returned to Earth.For more information, go to the Lockheed Martin news release at http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2009/0616ssMSLHeatShield.html WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, has a new name thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma from the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa submitted the winning entry, "Curiosity." As her prize, Ma wins a trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where she will be invited to sign her name directly onto the rover as it is being assembled.A NASA panel selected the name following a nationwide student contest that attracted more than 9,000 proposals via the Internet and mail. The panel primarily took into account the quality of submitted essays. Name suggestions from the Mars Science Laboratory project leaders and a non-binding public poll also were considered."Students from every state suggested names for this rover. That's testimony to the excitement Mars missions spark in our next generation of explorers," said Mark Dahl, the mission's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the nominating essays were excellent and several of the names would have fit well. I am especially pleased with the choice, which recognizes something universally human and essential to science."Ma decided to enter the rover-naming contest after she heard about it at her school."I was really interested in space, but I thought space was something I could only read about in books and look at during the night from so far away," Ma said. "I thought that I would never be able to get close to it, so for me, naming the Mars rover would at least be one step closer.""Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day," Ma wrote in her winning essay. "Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder."The naming contest was conducted in partnership with Disney-Pixar's animated film "WALL-E." The activity invited ideas from students 5 - 18 years old enrolled in a U.S. school. The contest started in November 2008. Entries were accepted until midnight Jan. 25.Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures supplied the prizes for the contest, including 30 for semifinalists related to "WALL-E." Nine finalists have been invited to provide messages to be placed on a microchip mounted on Curiosity. The microchip also will contain the names of thousands of people around the world who have "signed" their names electronically via the Internet. Additional electronic signatures still are being accepted via the Internet."We have been eager to call the rover by name," said Pete Theisinger, who manages the JPL team building and testing Curiosity. "Giving it a name worthy of this mission's quest means a lot to the people working on it."Curiosity will be larger and more capable than any craft previously sent to land on the Red Planet. It will check to see whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of life. The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several chemical building blocks of life.The Mars Science Laboratory project is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.For more information about the mission and the contest winner, visit:To send your name on the rover microchip, visit:WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mars.A launch date of October 2009 no longer is feasible because of testing and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission success. The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favorable for flights to Mars only a few weeks every two years. The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011."We will not lessen our standards for testing the mission's complex flight systems, so we are choosing the more responsible option of changing the launch date," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Up to this point, efforts have focused on launching next year, both to begin the exciting science and because the delay will increase taxpayers' investment in the mission. However, we've reached the point where we can not condense the schedule further without compromising vital testing."The Mars Science Laboratory team recently completed an assessment of the progress it has made in the past three months. As a result of the team's findings, the launch date was changed."Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical challenges and pulling hardware together," said Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The right and smart course now for a successful mission is to launch in 2011."The advanced rover is one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed. It will use new technologies to adjust its flight while descending through the Martian atmosphere, and to set the rover on the surface by lowering it on a tether from a hovering descent stage. Advanced research instruments make up a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. The Mars Science Laboratory is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers. It will employ a new surface propulsion system.Rigorous testing of components and systems is essential to develop such a complex mission and prepare it for launch. Tests during the middle phases of development resulted in decisions to re-engineer key parts of the spacecraft."Costs and schedules are taken very seriously on any science mission," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "However, when it's all said and done, the passing grade is mission success."The mission will explore a Mars site where images taken by NASA's orbiting spacecraft indicate there were wet conditions in the past. Four candidate landing sites are under consideration. The rover will check for evidence of whether ancient Mars environments had conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of that life if it existed there.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory project for the Science Mission Directorate.For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory, visit: