[meteorite-list] NASA Curiosity Rover Approaches First Anniversary on Mars

[Ron Baalke]

August 2, 2013

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

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov 

RELEASE 13-243

NASA Curiosity Rover Approaches First Anniversary on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover will mark one year on Mars next week and has already  
achieved its main science goal of revealing ancient Mars could have supported  
life. The mobile laboratory also is guiding designs for future planetary  
missions.

"Successes of our Curiosity -- that dramatic touchdown a year ago and the  
science findings since then -- advance us toward further exploration,  
including sending humans to an asteroid and Mars," said NASA Administrator  
Charles Bolden. "Wheel tracks now, will lead to boot prints later."

After inspiring millions of people worldwide with its successful landing in a  
crater on the Red Planet on Aug. 6, 2012 (Aug. 5, 2012, PDT), Curiosity has  
provided more than 190 gigabits of data; returned more than 36,700 full  
images and 35,000 thumbnail images; fired more than 75,000 laser shots to  
investigate the composition of targets; collected and analyzed sample  
material from two rocks; and driven more than one mile (1.6 kilometers).

Curiosity team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,  
Calif.,will share remembrances about the dramatic landing night and the  
mission overall in an event that will air on NASA Television and the  
agency’s website from 10:45 a.m. to noon EDT (7:45 to 9 a.m. PDT) on  
Tuesday, Aug. 6.

Immediately following that program, from noon to 1:30 p.m., NASA TV will  
carry a live public event from NASA Headquarters in Washington. That event  
will feature NASA officials and crew members aboard the International Space  
Station as they observe the rover anniversary and discuss how its activities  
and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a human mission to Mars  
and an asteroid. Social media followers may submit questions on Twitter and  
Google+ in advance and during the event using the hashtag #askNASA.

Curiosity, which is the size of a car, traveled 764 yards (699 meters) in the  
past four weeks since leaving a group of science targets where it worked for  
more than six months The rover is making its way to the base of Mount Sharp,  
where it will investigate lower layers of a mountain that rises three miles  
from the floor of the crater.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its unprecedented sky crane  
landing system placed Curiosity on Mars near the base of Mount Sharp. The  
mountain has exposed geological layers, including ones identified by Mars  
orbiters as originating in a wet environment. The rover landed about one mile  
(1.6 kilometers) from the center of that carefully chosen, 12-mile-long (20  
kilometers) target area.

Scientists decided first to investigate closer outcrops where the mission  
quickly found signs of vigorous ancient stream flow. These were the first  
streambed pebble deposits ever examined up close on Mars.

Evidence of a past environment well suited to support microbial life came  
within the first eight months of the 23-month primary mission from analysis  
of the first sample material ever collected by drilling into a rock on Mars.

"We now know Mars offered favorable conditions for microbial life billions of  
years ago," said the mission's project scientist, John Grotzinger of the  
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has been gratifying to  
succeed, but that has also whetted our appetites to learn more. We hope those  
enticing layers at Mount Sharp will preserve a broad diversity of other  
environmental conditions that could have affected habitability."

The mission measured natural radiation levels on the trip to Mars and is  
monitoring radiation and weather on the surface of Mars, which will be  
helpful for designing future human missions to the planet. The Curiosity  
mission also found evidence Mars lost most of its original atmosphere through  
processes that occurred at the top of the atmosphere. NASA's next mission to  
Mars, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), is being prepared for  
launch in November to study those processes in the upper atmosphere.

JPL manages the Curiosity mission and built the rover for NASA's Science  
Mission Directorate in Washington.

To follow the conversation online about Curiosity's first year on Mars, use  
hashtag #1YearOnMars or follow @NASA and @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv 

The events airing on Tuesday also will be carried on Ustream at:

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl 

A movie made with Hazard-Avoidance Camera images from Curiosity's first year,  
titled "Twelve Months in Two Minutes," is available at:

http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/1yearin2mins 

For more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl 

and

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl 

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