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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.
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.
The role of the Mac at NASA and JPL is shown off by Mars Curiosity mission
My colleague Steve Sande touched on this subject of all the Macs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an earlier post, and I've been doing some digging to find out more about all the Mac love at our space agency and its field centers. JPL is managed by Caltech, but it falls under NASA's administrative and funding jurisdiction. I talked to a retired JPL engineer who was using Macs on his desk all the way back to the vintage Macintosh SE. He feels the population of Macs grew when the company started making solid notebooks, like the first MacBook Pro. "People started bringing their own into work, and pretty soon a lot of other people followed. Soon they became almost standard issue at JPL, where they were popular in imaging work, especially creating large mosaics, and when OS X came out there was the added advantage of an OS that was UNIX based." The engineer also cited the Pentium floating point division error in the 1990s as a factor in the Mac's adoption. PowerPC Mac workstations of that era didn't use the Intel microprocessor and were unaffected by the arithmetic flaw in the Pentium CPU; the flaw was so obscure that it took number theory experiments to expose it, but Intel's lackluster initial response didn't sit well with people who might be risking a multimillion-dollar interplanetary probe on the Nth decimal place of a calculation. Jerry Blackmon, who used to do desktop support at the Goddard Space Flight Center, also cited a bring-your-own-device attitude as part of the Mac movement. "The scientists and engineers can request whatever platform they desire, and they mostly pick Macs. And it isn't specifically for stuff that runs in X11 either; they use their Macs for everything and emulate when they need to use a Windows app." NASA even wrote Photoshop plug-ins so images from the Hubble Space Telescope could be opened on both Macs and PCs. The engineer I talked to says Macs now seem to dominate at JPL, and that is clear from the video from the landing of the Mars Curiosity probe last night. I saw a handful of ThinkPads as well, and some iPads scattered around the consoles. Those appeared to be functioning as extra monitors to keep an eye on spacecraft telemetry. When someone tells you "Macs are toys," you might gently remind them that they seem to be pretty popular for the "real work" of helping to bring a $2.6 billion dollar spacecraft 352 million miles down to a precise target. The MSL mission is tasked to explore the geological origins of Mars and perhaps learn if life ever existed there. Macs were always pretty good at the Lunar Lander game in the dim past, but this is something far beyond that. If you're also using your Mac in science and engineering, be sure to let us know why in the comments. [Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS (Malin Space Science Systems)]
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.
