Curiosity's Secret Message...

If you look carefully at Curiosity’s wheels, you might notice that along with treads, there are square and rectangular holes. According to JPL Rover Mechanical Engineering Team Manager Richard Rainen, these holes are actually odometer markers. Rainen said,“There are asymmetric patterns, actually holes, inside the wheels of the rover that will leave an imprint on the surface of Mars. We’re going to be looking at these imprints and verifying that it has traversed the distance it expects to traverse. If it looks like it’s not traversing, even though the wheels are going, that is an indication that the vehicle is getting stuck and it will stop and call back home.”

But back in 2007, when the Curiosity team at JPL was putting together the rover, its wheel cleats had a raised pattern with the letters “JPL,” leaving a little stamp of the rover’s birthplace everywhere it rolled. But the finished Curiosity rover wound up with a different pattern with holes and  the engineers got to make the markers in any shape they wanted. So what pattern did JPL choose to put on Curiosity’s wheels? The holes are in a pattern of short squares and longer rectangles - almost like dots and dashes. Morse code… And what does it spell out in Morse code? JPL!

J . - - - 
P . - - . 
L . - . .

The wheels of Curiosity will soon begin to leave there secret message on the surface of Mars. Software is being uploaded now that will allow the rover to begin moving about Gale Crater.

Source - http://www.arrl.org/news

Curiosity's Self Portrait

NASA's Curiosity rover took this self portrait of itself by using its Navigation cameras, located on the now-upright mast. The camera snapped pictures 360-degrees around the rover, while pointing down at the rover deck, up and straight ahead. 

Curiosity's New Home

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover's "head" or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground. 

The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover's descent stage thrusters.

Photo and text from here - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4342

Scene of a Martian Landing

The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing. The large, reduced-scale image points out the strewn hardware: the heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute, then the rover itself touched down, and finally, after cables were cut, the sky crane flew away to the northwest and crashed. Relatively dark areas in all four spots are from disturbances of the bright dust on Mars, revealing the darker material below the surface dust.

Around the rover, this disturbance was from the sky crane thrusters, and forms a bilaterally symmetrical pattern. The darkened radial jets from the sky crane are downrange from the point of oblique impact, much like the oblique impacts of asteroids. In fact, they make an arrow pointing to Curiosity.

The Curiosity rover is approximately 4,900 feet (1,500 meters) away from the heat shield; about 2,020 feet (615 meters) away from the parachute and back shell; and approximately 2,100 feet (650 meters) away from the discoloration consistent with the impact of the sky crane.

Text and Photo from http://go.nasa.gov/OXjKz6

First Color Image from Mars by Curiosity

This view of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing. (The team calls this day Sol 1, which is the first Martian day of operations; Sol 1 began on Aug. 6, 2012.)

In the distance, the image shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The image is murky because the MAHLI’s removable dust cover is apparently coated with dust blown onto the camera during the rover’s terminal descent. Images taken without the dust cover in place are expected during checkout of the robotic arm in coming weeks.

Mars Robot Size Comparison

Take a look at this size comparison of the robots sent to Mars...It explains why Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner could use the bouncing balloon (airbag) landing and Curiosity used the sky-crane landing. Curiosity's EDL (Entry, Descent and Landing) also allowed for much greater accuracy in hitting a particular landing site.

Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) mockup (right) compared with the Mars Exploration Rover (Spirit/Opportunity) (left) and Sojourner Rover (center) by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Wheel size comparison: Sojourner, Mars Exploration Rover (Spirit/Opportunity), Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity).

Curiosity

Why is the Mars Curiosity Rover so interesting to me? Because it is the most sophisticated robotic planetary explorer ever built or conceived. Everything about it is hard to do. It also bears a name that means so much to me.

See the quote from Walt Disney to the right (and below)...It is kind of the theme of my blog and something that I think captures the whole idea of why we should try new things and always be learning...It was featured in Disney's animated film Meet the Robinsons.

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney