[meteorite-list] Curiosity Update - August 8, 2012

[Ron Baalke]

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1298

Curiosity Continues Checking Herself Out; Takes Self Portrait
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 8, 2012

After waking up to the rousing refrains of the Beatles' "Good 
Morning Good Morning," a healthy Curiosity continued checking out her 
systems and returning amazing imagery. The Sol 2 morning and afternoon 
UHF communications passes from NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance 
Orbiter spacecraft provided significant new data, including spectacular 
full-frame images of the Mars Science Laboratory's descent through the 
Martian atmosphere by Curiosity's Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) instrument. 
Other imagery included full-frame views from the rover's navigation cameras, 
or Navcams, looking at the rim of Gale Crater; the first, lower-resolution 
thumbnail 360-degree view of Curiosity's new surroundings in Gale Crater; 
deck pan images of the rover herself; and images of the Martian surface 
next to the rover. Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, 
or CTX, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has pinpointed the 
final resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. 
These tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at high speed, about 
7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.

The rover's high-gain antenna was successfully pointed toward Earth. Its 
3.6-foot-tall (1.1-meter) remote sensing mast was deployed, and range of 
motion was successfully tested. Surface radiation data were acquired from 
the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument but have not yet been 
downlinked. Curiosity's temperatures are running a bit warmer than 
expected; however, the flight team believes this is because Gale Crater 
is simply a bit warmer than originally predicted.

Plans for Sol 3 include assessing the performance 
of the high-gain antenna; uplinking files for the upcoming transition 
of Curiosity's flight software to the surface-optimized version R10 on 
Sol 5; Radiation Assessment Detector instrument observations; and Mastcam 
calibration target and 360-degree color panorama images. In addition, 
the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), Chemistry & Mineralogy 
Analyzer (CheMin), Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), and Dynamic Albedo Neutrons 
(DAN) instruments will be checked out.