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Mars Curiosity leaves its landing area, heads to distant frontier a quarter-mile away
Now that Curiosity has survived its thrill-a-minute landing and passed an upgrade and physical with (nearly) flying colors, the rover is off to earn its $2 billion keep. The trip started well, with the buggy driving 52 feet towards its first science site "beautifully, just as our rover planners designed it," according to NASA. The destination, Glenelg, is 1,500 feet away from the now-familiar Bradbury Landing where it first set down, which is pretty far for a rover that treks along at about a tenth of a mile per hour. On top of that, its minders have some stops in mind to test instruments -- meaning it'll arrive there in about two weeks. Once at Glenelg, Curiosity will scope the unusual geology of the region, though its principal destination for science is Mount Sharp, a relatively vast six miles away. Don't worry about it running out of gas, though -- the nuclear power supply will last a full Martian year, or 687 earth days.
Voice signals sent to Mars and back, while telephoto images tease rich geology
The Martian hills are alive with the sound of music. Well, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden's voice at least, as the agency reveals that the first recorded human voice has traveled from Earth, to another planet, and back. The words might not have literally echoed in the surrounding hills, but by having been beamed to Curiosity and back again, have made a small step towards interplanetary communication. Along with the motivational words of Bolden, the rover returned some telephoto images from the onboard 100mm and 34mm lenses. The pictures show the hills toward which Curiosity is bound, and tease the scientists with their rich-looking -- and hopefully revealing -- layers of geology. Want to know what interplanetary voicemail sounds like? No need to go to Mars and back, just click on the more coverage link below.
Rovio takes Angry Birds Space for a spin with NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover, teases Red Planet for fall (video)
It was almost as inevitable as gravity, really. Rovio has teamed up with NASA to offer a special, Curiosity-themed episode inside Angry Birds Space. The trek has the avians scouring 20 levels of the Martian landscape with a few bonuses thrown in for good measure. Just like your favorite childhood breakfast cereal, there's even a token healthy ingredient -- in this case, a chance for gamers to learn about Curiosity's exploration whenever they're not busy smashing pigs. Android and iOS users can dip into the new chapter right after they update, but that's not even the full extent of Rovio's plans. If the environs of Gale Crater are too limiting, you'll be glad to hear that the game developer is teasing a full-scale Red Planet variant for the fall.
NASA InSight tapped for Mars drilling mission in 2016
The surface of Mars? Psh... been there. With the Curiosity stage well under way, our exploration of the Red Planet is about to take a dive beneath the dust. Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport -- InSight, for short -- was just confirmed as a new NASA mission, with the space agency set to launch in March of 2016. Based on the Phoenix lander, the craft is tasked with giving us a peek beneath the planet's surface, armed with tools that include a geodetic instrument from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will be used to calculate Mars' rotation axis, a seismic wave sensor and a subsurface heat probe, to measure the planet's internal temperature. The program has a $425 million budget -- a bit shy of the $2.5 billion allocated for Curiosity -- not including the costly launch vehicle. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that InSight will help pave the way for future human missions to Mars, and represents just one of the related projects to come. Hit up the source link below for a closer look at JPL's latest endeavor.
Curiosity landing video assembled from high-res images (video)
A new video has been compiled by Spaceflight101.com showing Curiosity's final minutes of terror in glorious HD (though a dearth of frames and lack of stabilization make it a bit herky-jerky). It's an assembly of all the high-res photos taken by the buggy on the way down to its now familiar perch, rolling at the not-exactly-HFR speed of 4 fps, but still trumping a previous low-res thumbnail version. It gives a much clearer, rover's-eye-view of the journey, starting with the heat shield ejection and finishing with the dusty, butterfly-like touchdown. Check it out below the break to see the precarious descent -- and don't forget your Dramamine. Update: An enterprising (and patient) individual, Dominic Muller, spent four straight days creating a frame interpolated version of the video, giving the choppy footage a beautiful, smooth new look. Check out his version below the original after the break -- blow it up to full screen HD, crank the sound and enjoy.
Curiosity rover warms up its laser with basaltic rock blast
Intrepid 6-wheeler Curiosity perhaps protested too much when it tweeted "Yes, I've got a laser beam attached to my head. I'm not ill tempered; I zapped a rock for science." NASA turned the rover's high-powered laser loose with 30 pulses of a million watts each, reducing a thin layer of the chosen stone, dubbed N165 "Coronation," to plasma. The resulting spectrum was then analyzed by the on-board "ChemCam" to determine its composition, and the US/French team who developed the system said it's working even better on Mars than it did on terra firma. The results are now being studied, but if we had a laser beam on another planet, we'd be firing it all over the place -- in the name of "science," of course.
NASA maps out proposed travel plans for Curiosity, decides to head for the hills
As the vista on Mars gradually gets ever clearer, and the system checks continue to show that the rover is in good stead, the team behind Curiosity will be increasingly eager to stretch its legs wheels. The first trip might be just a cautious few meters, but plans for a more adventurous jaunt have just been revealed. The first location in Curiosity's sights is an area referred to as Glenelg, which, based on initial pictures, offers three different geological characteristics, as well as potentially being an area where water used to be present. The site is only 1,300 feet (400 meters) from where the rover landed, but it could still take several weeks to get there. This is merely a quick dash compared to the next leg of its journey, which sees Curiosity heading out to an area called Mount Sharp -- a large mound of layered rock which is hoped to contain visible geology potentially dating back millions of years. With seven kilometers (4.4 miles) lying between the rover and the mountain's foothills, it'll be a much longer journey, but one that could provide the first real evidence of the planet's ability to host, or have hosted, life.
Visualized: Mars' Gale Crater in seamless 360 degrees
Have you been lapping up every pixel Curiosity sends back, but wishing you could somehow see those panoramas as nature intended? Well, thanks to kind 360 Cities user Andrew Bodrov, you can. The controls take a little getting used to, but persevere and you'll be rewarded with a view as if you were atop Curiosity itself. We're already imagining the fun if this was in the next Google Maps update, who knows what might turn up. Land on the source for the mind-blow.
Life on Mars: One week of Curiosity
Is there life on Mars? NASA's latest mission to the red planet might well answer that question, or perhaps the more pertinent question, was there life on Mars. At 10:02 AM EST on November 26th last year, the space agency's Mars Science Laboratory (to give the mission its full name) set off on its eight-month journey to the red planet. The most advanced equipment ever sent to the planet -- and the biggest-ever rover -- should allow exploration of some of the most interesting regions, over far larger distances than ever previously covered. On arrival, after negotiating a tricky landing, the mobile laboratory (that's Curiosity) will spend a Martian year (687 Earth days) analyzing rock samples and seeking evidence of conditions suitable for microbial life or -- we can live in hope -- actual evidence of the same. After the break, we take a look at some of the key events over the first seven days on the planet's surface.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Eindhoven's Evoluon Center, folding compact cars and the best of 3D printing
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. As we enter mid-August, millions of people will load up the car and head out to the beach for summer vacation. But no matter how much energy you put into building a sandcastle, it's unlikely to be as impressive as the structures produced by Stone Spray, a solar-powered, robotic 3D printer that can create entire buildings out of sand. It's hard to deny that 3D printing has the ability to change the world -- especially after learning about a two-year-old girl who gained the use of her arms with the aid of a 3D-printed robotic exoskeleton (she calls them her "magic arms").
NASA's Curiosity rover receives long-distance OTA update, 'brain transplant' on Mars
Think it's nifty when your carrier deigns to provide your smartphone with that long awaited OTA update? That's nothing. Over the weekend, NASA's Curiosity rover will be receiving its first long-distance OTA update -- all the way out there on Mars. The goal is to transition both redundant main computers from software suited for landing the vehicle to software optimized for surface exploration -- such as driving, obstacle avoidance and using the robotic arm. NASA calls it a "brain transplant" and points out that the software was actually uploaded during the flight from Earth. Now can someone please enable OTA downloads for the human brain? We'd really like to know kung fu. PR after the break.
What time is it on Mars? There's a Mac app for that
Budding astronomers and NASA flight controllers need to know -- what time is it at the landing site of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Opportunity rover? As we all know from watching the successful rover landing the other day, Macs are very popular at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. So it's not surprising that there's a Mac app available for determining the current time at various points on the red planet. The Mars24 Sunclock app is a Java application that displays a constantly updating clock in one window as well as a second window that displays a sunclock (a map of the Martian surface showing the parts of the planet in light and shadow), a solar system view showing where the various planets are in their orbits around the Sun, a local panorama from the Opportunity rover's current location, or an analemma. The app is surprisingly fun to use. The sunclock display also shows the spot on the Mars surface that is directly "under" the sun or Earth and the panorama display lets the flight controllers figure out when and where the sun is going to rise from the viewpoint of the rover. There's a constant display of how far away Mars is at the present time (1.685 AU or 156,630,535 miles), and how long it's going to take for signals from Earth or Mars to reach the other planet (right now, 14 minutes and 1 second). The only negative about this app is that most Mountain Lion machines don't have a Java virtual machine installed, and you'll be prompted to let OS X install it before you can run the app. There's also a security concern; getting the app to run on Mountain Lion at this time requires you to "allow applications downloaded from anywhere" just for the first launch, since this is an unsigned app and Gatekeeper throws a hissy fit when you try to run it. After that initial launch, you can switch your Gatekeeper settings back to the preferred "App Store & identified developers" option; the app has been whitelisted by the initial launch. Normally, you could use the workaround of right-clicking the app and choosing Open, then telling Gatekeeper to launch the app -- however as the NASA download page notes this does not work for this particular app. It reports as "damaged" unless Gatekeeper is in fully permissive mode for the first launch. [Thanks to reader Gregory for his note about Gatekeeper, which led us to check both the right-click and restored setting options.] Still, if you switch Gatekeeper to permissive mode for a moment, launch the app & then switch back, you can install Mars24 Sunclock and enjoy the feeling of being a Curiosity flight controller without the need for a mohawk haircut. Now if they could just make this an iOS app and give authorized people a way to "drive" the rover from home...
This is the Modem World: Curiosity Killed the Fanboy
Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology. Usain Bolt is fast. Really fast. So fast, in fact, that we all revel in his quirky personality and dig the fact that he comes from Jamaica. We're all Bolt fanboys. The Olympics, born as a celebration of the human body and spirit, bring the world together every two years in a peaceful competition and allow us to transform nationalism into a spirited, peaceful chant for our own countries. Usain Bolt displayed the Olympic spirit during a post-race interview when he stopped the affair to wait for the American national anthem to finish as another athlete received her gold medal. Respect.
Daily Update for August 7, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Macs abound at NASA/JPL Mars Curiosity mission control
For those of us who stayed up late last night to watch the streaming coverage of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars, it was a treat to see the huge numbers of MacBooks, iPads, and even iPhones that were in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The image above shows one of the EDL Ops (Entry, Descent and Landing Operations) engineers gazing intently at the screen of a MacBook Pro at incoming data. Other photos we've seen show a conference room full of engineers and scientists at JPL sitting around a table loaded with MacBook Pros with nary a Lenovo or Dell laptop in sight. Why the love of Macs? It's probably because OS X is the "Unix that works," the mainstream operating system that's built upon the BSD UNIX beloved by scientists and engineers (and is also certified by the Single UNIX Specification group as an Open Brand UNIX 03 product). Of course, the scientific and engineering community may not be thrilled with the recent shift away from bundling Apple-branded X11 with OS X in Mountain Lion, as that's often used to run legacy apps. The current X11 solution is the XQuartz open source project, which is heavily supported by Apple. Be sure to check back later; TUAW's Mel Martin is following up with a post about more reasons for all of this Apple love at JPL. [h/t Jeff Gamet] #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Lego Curiosity Mars rover explores barren surface of Kennedy Space Center (video)
If you want to do what NASA just did, except in Lego form, then look no further. NXT builders Doug Moran and Will Gorman put together this amazing working Curiosity rover that can happily roll around plastic terrains, searching for the answer to Bowie's questions. Four of the six wheels are powered, enabling the gear to make 360 degree turns, while a fully working arm and mast are controlled separately. Of course, nothing we can say could compare to seeing it in the flesh plastic, so head on past the break to see it in action.
NASA's Curiosity Mars landing successful, first pictures trickling in (video)
After "seven minutes of terror" involving guided entry, parachute and powered descent, and even a sky crane, NASA's Curiosity rover has successfully touched down on the surface of Mars. Better yet, the 2,000lbs (900kg) science lab has established communications with Earth and is sending back telemetry along with the first pictures of Gale crater. These initial grayscale images are only 256 x 256 pixels in size but show Curiosity's shadow on the Martian soil. Peek at our galley below and stay tuned for updates. Update: Hit the break to check out a video of all the "seven minutes of terror" highlights. %Gallery-161818%
Watch NASA's Curiosity rover touch down on Mars, live at 1:30AM EDT
You watched the launch, bit your nails over computer simulations and even played the game, and it all comes down to today: NASA's Curiosity rover is about to land on Mars. The $2.5 billion vehicle has been en route to the red planet for eight months, and in a few short hours will spend seven terrifying minutes blindly making its way to the Martian surface -- only to make NASA scientists wait another full seven before reporting on its success or failure. The rover is flying solo. That doesn't mean we can't be there in spirit, however: NASA TV will be broadcasting the event on Ustream, offering commentary from the minds behind the rover, as well as audio from mission control. The Curiosity Cam, which runs from 11:30PM until 2:00AM EDT and 3:30AM to 4:30AM EDT, will offer commentary from the scientists and engineers behind Curiosity, while a second feed (at NASA JPL Live, which runs from 11:30PM onward) will play audio from mission control. If all goes to plan, NASA will be able to share an image from Curiosity's navigation cameras, confirming its safe arrival on the Martian surface. Sounds like a hell of a show to us. Read on to view the Curiosity Cam right here or check out the source links below to prep your evening (or early morning) viewing for yourself. Let us know your own thoughts on Curiosity's landing in the comments. Update: Touchdown confirmed! The entire sequence went perfectly to plan, and rover Curiosity is now on the surface of Mars and sending telemetry data. Update: NASA's press conference is now happening live.
ESA team builds self-piloting rover in six months, tests it in Chilean desert
Chile's Atacama Desert might not be true Martian territory, but it's close enough for the European Space Agency's new rover. Built by a crack engineering team in just six months, the Seeker rover was created to autonomously roam 6 km of Mars-like terrain and trace its way back. The Seeker just wrapped up a two week gauntlet in the Chilean wasteland using ol' fashioned dead reckoning and stereoscopic vision to find its way, compiling a 3D map of its surroundings as it puttered along. The full-scale rover wandered the arid terrain on its lonesome until temperatures forced it to stop after trekking 5.1 km. The red planet won't welcome an ESA rover until 2018, but those jonesin' for news from Martian soil should keep their eyes peeled for Curiosity's August touchdown.
Curiosity rover to land in Mars's Gale Crater to look for life, finally answer Bowie's nagging questions
It's gotten its own photo shoot, some cool animation, and the interest of James Cameron -- and now Curiosity finally has a destination. NASA's pluckily-named Mars rover is set to land next to a mountain inside the red planet's 96-mile-wide Gale Crater. Curiosity is scheduled to touch down in August 2012 in search of life on the fourth rock from the sun. The crater, one of 60 suggested sites, was chosen due to its potential for a safe landing and the possibility of scientific discovery, thanks in part to nearby geographical formations that may have been created by water. Here's hoping it encounters some serious space oddities when it gets there.
