All Systems Go, Curiosity Is Ready for Some Science

Curiosity has driven about the length of a football field across Mars since it landed on August 6, but so far the rover has mostly been looking at itself. But the rover?s first stage of self-checks is nearly complete, Jennifer Trosper, the Curiosity mission manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a mission update this afternoon. Engineers and technical experts have been on hand in the control room to remotely test all the equipment for the first month of the two-year mission. "The checkouts have been an outstanding success," she said.

On Friday the "science team" will take control, driving Curiosity southeast in search of a rock suitable for the first contact science. Ralf Gellert, principal investigator for the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer instrument (or APXS) on Curiosity (seen in the image above), said he is loving how his equipment looks so far. "There?s been no structural damage, it looks quite clean."

The science team is also excited about using MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, a camera mounted on the end of the swiveling robot arm, seen here. "We opened the dust cover on MAHLI and everything is just beautiful," said Ken Edgett, principal investigator for MAHLI on Curiosity,. MAHLI has been sending down the first photos from the mission: self-portraits of the rover wheels with red Mount Sharp, the mission?s ultimate destination, in the background.

As part of MAHLI?s checkouts, the scientists snapped this picture of a penny Curiosity had carried with it into space. A close-up of the coin demonstrates the powerful 14 micrograms per pixel resolution by revealing two tiny grains of Martian sand, one just below Lincoln?s ear and another below the first 9 in "1909."

Edgett gave a few clues about the grains, even though the science team hasn?t officially released any analysis yet. "They?re about .1 or .2 mm in diameter, with jagged edges, which means they haven?t travelled far," he said. High winds would have blasted them into a smooth shape. These little grains were probably kicked up in the turbulence of the rover?s landing.

Even without the space dust, the first penny on Mars was already historic. It was minted in 1909, the first year Lincoln?s face appeared on the cent.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/all-systems-go-curiosity-is-ready-for-some-science-12642047?src=rss

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