First 360-Degree Panorama from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

Aug. 8, 2012

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

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

RELEASE: 12-273

FIRST 360-DEGREE PANORAMA FROM NASA'S CURIOSITY MARS ROVER

PASADENA, Calif. -- Remarkable image sets from NASA's Curiosity rover
and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are continuing to develop the
story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.

The images from Curiosity's just-activated navigation cameras, or
Navcams, include the rover's first self-portrait, looking down at its
deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution
thumbnails, is the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in
Gale Crater. Also downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams
providing the most detailed depiction to date of the surface adjacent
to the rover.

"These Navcam images indicate that our powered descent stage did more
than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing
freebie," said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission
from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The thrust
from the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5 meter]
trench in the surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the
bottom. Its depth below the surface is valuable data we can use going
forward."

Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, or CTX, aboard
NASA's MRO has pinpointed the final resting spots of the six,
55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The tungsten masses
impacted the Martian surface at a high speed of about 7.5 miles (12
kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.

Curiosity's latest images are available at:

http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0

Wednesday, the team deployed the 3.6 foot-tall (1.1-meter) camera
mast, activated and gathered surface radiation data from the rover's
Radiation Assessment Detector and concluded testing of the rover's
high-gain antenna.

Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as
large as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and
Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for
checking rocks' elemental composition from a distance, are the first
of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which
are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and
powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these
samples into the rover's analytical laboratory instruments.

To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five
times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site
places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's
interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and
sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.

MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is
operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. The instrument was
built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. The
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover projects are
managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

and

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

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

For more about NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mro


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