[meteorite-list] NASA's Curiosity Studies Mars Surroundings, Nears Drive

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-254

NASA's Curiosity Studies Mars Surroundings, Nears Drive
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 21, 2012

[Images]
    * Wiggle in the Gravel
    * End of Curiosity's Extended Arm, Full-Resolution
    * Part of Curiosity's Outstretched Arm, Full-Resolution
    * Location of DAN on Curiosity
    * Laying the Groundwork for Curiosity's DAN
    * Curiosity Blasts Ground with Neutrons
    * Weather Sensors from Spain on Mars Rover Curiosity
    * First Pressure Readings on Mars
    * Sample Weather Report
    * Traces of Landing

PASADENA, Calif.  - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been investigating the Martian 
weather around it and the soil beneath it, as its controllers prepare for the 
car-size vehicle's first drive on Mars.

The rover's weather station, provided by Spain, checks air temperature, ground 
temperature, air pressure, wind and other variables every hour at the landing site 
in Gale Crater. On a typical Martian day, or "sol,"  based on measurements so far 
in the two-week old mission, air temperatures swing from 28 degrees to minus 103 
degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 to minus 75 Celsius). Ground temperatures change even 
more between afternoon and pre-dawn morning, from 37 degrees to minus 132 degrees 
Fahrenheit (3 to minus 91 Celsius).

"We will learn about changes from day to day and season to season," said Javier 
Gómez-Elvira of the Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain, principal investigato
for the suite of weather sensors called the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS).

Within a week or so, daily Mars weather reports from Curiosity will become available 
at: http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html or bit.ly/RzQe6p .

One of the two sets of REMS wind sensors is not providing data. "One possibility is that 
pebbles lofted during the landing hit the delicate circuit boards on one of the two REMS 
booms," said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We will have to be more clever about using the remaining 
wind sensor to get wind speed and direction."

An instrument provided by Russia is checking for water bound into minerals in the top 
three feet (one meter) of soil beneath the rover. It employs a technology that is used 
in oil prospecting on Earth, but had never before been sent to another planet.

"Curiosity has begun shooting neutrons into the ground," said Igor Mitrofanov of Space 
Research Institute, Moscow, principal investigator for this instrument, called the 
Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN. "We measure the amount of hydrogen in the soil by 
observing how the neutrons are scattered, and hydrogen on Mars is an indicator of water."

The most likely hydrogen to be found in shallow ground of Gale Crater, near the Martian 
equator, is in hydrated minerals. These are minerals with water molecules, or related 
ions, bound into the crystalline structure of rocks. They can tenaciously retain water 
from a wetter past after all free water has gone.

Curiosity will soon have a different patch of ground beneath it. Today, the six-wheeled 
rover wiggled its four corner wheels side to side for the first time on Mars, as a test 
of the steering actuators on those wheels.  This was critical preparation for 
Curiosity's first drive on Mars.

"Late tonight, we plan to send Curiosity the commands for doing our first drive 
tomorrow," said Curiosity Mission Manager Michael Watkins of JPL.

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to Mars on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, 
EDT). In a two-year prime mission researchers are using the rover's 10 instruments to 
assess whether the selected study area has ever offered environmental conditions 
favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether life has 
existed.

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.

More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl and 
http://www.nasa.gov/msl .

You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and 
on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington                                                                
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

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

2012-254