[meteorite-list] NASA Curiosity Mars Rover Installing Smarts for Driving

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-238

NASA Curiosity Mars Rover Installing Smarts for Driving 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
August 10, 2012

[Images]
    * Traces of Landing
    * Inspecting Curiosity's Descent Stage Crash Site
    * Hitting the Marks
    * Mars Weather Map, Aug. 5
    * Zeroing in on Rover's Landing Site
    * Landing Accuracy on Mars: A Historical Perspective
    * Guided Tour of Curiosity's Martian Landing
    * Witnessing the Descent Stage Crash?
    * Now You See an Impact Plume, Now You Don't

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity 
will spend its first weekend on Mars transitioning to software better 
suited for tasks ahead, such as driving and using its strong robotic arm.

The rover's "brain transplant," which will occur during a series of steps 
Aug. 10 through Aug. 13, will install a new version of software on both 
of the rover's redundant main computers.  This software for Mars surface 
operations was uploaded to the rover's memory during the Mars Science 
Laboratory spacecraft's flight from Earth.

"We designed the mission from the start to be able to upgrade the software 
as needed for different phases of the mission," said Ben Cichy of NASA's 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., chief software engineer 
for the Mars Science Laboratory mission. "The flight software version 
Curiosity currently is using was really focused on landing the vehicle. 
It includes many capabilities we just don't need any more. It gives us 
basic capabilities for operating the rover on the surface, but we have 
planned all along to switch over after landing to a version of flight 
software that is really optimized for surface operations."

A key capability in the new version is image processing to check for 
obstacles. This allows for longer drives by giving the rover more 
autonomy to identify and avoid potential hazards and drive along a safe 
path the rover identifies for itself. Other new capabilities facilitate 
use of the tools at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

While Curiosity is completing the software transition, the mission's science 
team is continuing to analyze images the rover has taken of its surroundings 
inside Gale Crater.  Researchers are discussing which features in the 
scene to investigate after a few weeks of initial checkouts and observations 
to assess equipment on the rover and characteristics of the landing site.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area 
on Mars at 10:31:45 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6), which 
includes the 13.8 minutes needed for confirmation of the touchdown to 
be radioed to Earth at the speed of light.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large 
as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some 
of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks' elemental 
composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity 
will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, 
to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel 
out these samples into the rover's analytical laboratory instruments.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times 
as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site at 4.59 
degrees south, 137.44 degrees east, places the rover within driving distance 
of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from orbit have 
identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a 
wet history.

Mars Science Laboratory is a project of NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate. The mission is managed by JPL. Curiosity was designed, developed 
and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology 
in Pasadena.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
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
and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle  818-354-5011
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

2012-238