[meteorite-list] Video Shows Rover Heat Shield Hit Mars, Create Dust Cloud

[Ron Baalke]

Video Feature                                                   

Video Shows Rover Heat Shield Hit Mars, Create Dust Cloud 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 17, 2012

A new NASA video, available at http://bit.ly/heatshield, shows the 
cloud of dust that rose from the surface of the Red Planet after 
the Curiosity rover's heat shield hit the Martian terrain during 
the spacecraft's descent on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The video was 
made using a sequence of 25 images taken by the Mars Descent Imager 
on Curiosity while the rover was still suspended on a parachute, 
after the spacecraft had jettisoned its heat shield. 

A dark spot, the shadow of the heat shield, enters the scene from 
lower left, moving toward the center. The bright heat shield itself 
is also apparent just before the shadow and hardware meet in the 
impact on the surface. The area of ground visible in the images is 
about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. The frames are 
cropped portions of full-frame images from the Mars Descent Imager. 

Watch the full video, which shows the impact at various speeds, at 
http://bit.ly/heatshield. 

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate 
in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, 
a division of Caltech. The Mars Descent Imager was provided by Malin 
Space Science Systems, San Diego. 

For more information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: 
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl and http://www.nasa.gov/msl . 

DC Agle / Guy Webster 818-393-9011 / 818-354-6278 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 
agle at jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

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