©ESA©NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity from above
While NASA's Curiosity rover performs its close inspection of Mars,
searching for signs of life and navigating the alien terrain, some spacecraft
are able to look down on it from Martian orbit – as shown in this image
taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) High Resolution
Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
The Curiosity rover has been shot here as a blue flash in the ‘Woodland
Bay’ on the side of Mouth Sharp in the Gale Crater. Just at the top of the
picture is the Vera Rubin Ridge, a region Curiosity has already visited.Calibration is key
The European Space Agency and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, will
launch their first-ever Martian rover next year as part of the ExoMars 2020
mission. Recently engineers have been preparing its instruments to make
sure it 'knows' what it is looking at.
This picture here shows the Close-Up Imager (CLUPI), which will do as its
names suggests – take close-up, high-resolution colour images of Martian
rocks and soil. Sitting in front of it is its calibration sample. That is an actual
piece of Mars that was ejected from the Red Planet millions, or maybe even
billions, of years ago and made its way through the Earth’s atmosphere to
the country of Oman in 2001.Mars 2020
gets its legs
and wheels
Here are the hardworking
engineers at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, California,
putting on the Mars 2020
rover’s legs and wheels- arguably the most
important part of a rover - otherwise referred to as
the mobility suspension.
After the engineers
tick that part off the list,
they will next move onto
installing the robotic arm,
the SuperCam instrument
and the Sample Caching
System. This system
includes 17 separate motors
that will collect samples of
Martian rock and soil that
will be returned to Earth by
a future mission.
launch pad
your first contact with the universe