Curiosity Rover
Uploaded by msnarayana on Oct 13, 2012
The Curiosity rover is a car-sized, robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL).
Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011 at 10:02 EST aboard the MSL spacecraft and successfully landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17 UTC.[5] The Bradbury Landing site[6] was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 563,000,000 km (350,000,000 mi) journey.[7]
The rover's goals include investigation of the Martian climate, geology, and whether Mars could have ever supported life, including investigation of the role of water and planetary habitability, as well as preparation for future human exploration.[8][9]
Goals and objectives
Masthead casts a shadow in this Navcam image on Sol 2 (August 8, 2012)
As established by the Mars Exploration Program, the main scientific goals of the MSL mission are to help determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, as well as determining the role of water, and to study the climate and geology of Mars.[9][8][9] The mission will also help prepare for human exploration.[9]
Attempting these goals, the Curiosity rover has eight main scientific objectives:[8]
1. Determine the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds
2. Inventory the chemical building blocks of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur)
3. Identify features that may represent the effects of biological processes (biosignatures)
4. Investigate the chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials
5. Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils
6. Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) Martian atmospheric evolution processes
7. Determine present state, distribution, and cycling of water and carbon dioxide
8. Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic radiation, cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons
Specifications
The Curiosity rover comprised 23% of the mass of the 3,893 kg (8,580 lb) Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft, which had the sole mission of delivering the rover safely across space from Earth to a soft landing on the surface of Mars. The remaining mass of the MSL craft was discarded in the process of carrying out this task.
• Dimensions: Curiosity rover has a mass of 899 kg (1,980 lb) including 80 kg (180 lb) of scientific instruments.[10] The rover is 2.9 m (9.5 ft) long by 2.7 m (8.9 ft) wide by 2.2 m (7.2 ft) in height.[11]
Radioisotope within a graphite shell goes into the generator.
• Power source: Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG),...