NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Report -- July 11, 2013

A NASA Mars Curiosity rover team member gives an update on developments and status of the planetary exploration mission. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area on Mars at 1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6, 2012 which includes the 13.8 minutes needed for confirmation of the touchdown to be radioed to Earth at the speed of light. The rover will conduct a nearly two-year prime mission to investigate whether the Gale Crater region of Mars ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.

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.

[SuperOssi]

To see photos of the surface of another planet is breathtaking for me!

[lilachs]

Please upload more video updates. Even of rocks anything Martin is interesting.

[psycotria]

Amazing application of engineering to further scientific objectives! Who could 'Dislike' that, and Why?

[astropgn]

Please, we want more curiosity report!

[DemonSniperNL]

Yeah, Let us see some more of pictures ect. It don't need to have a big story, it's just awesome to see.

[DemonSniperNL]

I agree with you, It's awesome to see space anyway.

[stevebrtr]

I was waiting on one of these videos. Why don't you guys at nasa give us some more of these reports. I understand there might not always be something worth telling. But in such a case give us some cool curiosity specs, trivia of facts.

[daveboy]

Exactly like that indeed. It has giant amounts of lag, that's why they also send all the commands as a single file.

[Cricrithezar]

Oh I sure hope so, if you're interested in faster than light travel for example, you might already have heard about alcubierre bubbles, the theory that might lead to warp drives. Maybe, once again, start trek will have imagined a new technology decades before it became a reality. I do hope we will travel to another planet soon, that would be awesome ! Can't wait to see what waits for us in the future :)

[arbyfiles]

i believe you are talking about Red Mars, a variant of the SpaceX Dragon capsule.

[daveboy]

because it is on another planet. There is a lot of latency in the signals, which means that they cannot react quickly when something happens. That means if they see a big rock closing in on the rover, it is already too late thanks to latency. That means they cannot cover a lot of distance per day in order to keep the rover safe.

[NavidIsANoob]

In a couple of years, NASA will send a static craft to Mars to dig like a meter or so into the ground. Doesn't seem like much, but it'll give a lot of information. When the time is right, they will send a big driller over there to look for underground waterlakes.

[JonathanRodriguez-lwtu]

Pleiodes haven't you signed up for the mars one way trip thingy?

[Xzefreeman]

:/ 14 minutes? that's decent enough. still, we'd expect some kind of improvement imho. something like "live control" with a decent below 1000ms lag in the near future. would be a great next step for NASA before doing all next manned missions.

[daveboy]

Actually, a signal needs 14 minutes to get from earth to mars or visa versa.

[BosonCollider]

Well, it's hard to know for sure whether or not alciuberre drives are possible without a theory of quantum gravity. Our understanding of them is steadily growing though. For example, a 100m diameter bubble would be saturated with Hawking radiation to the point where it would be like standing inside the sun.

TBH I don't think they'd be too useful for manned ships even if you managed to build them. Maybe as a way to move wormholes or as a weapon.

[Xzefreeman]

Better trust and give hope for technology to do something.

[Xzefreeman]

Wonder how much time taken for them to send single command... months? weeks? Hmm... :/ in this case, we'll all be expecting NASA to find a way to improve this anytime soon. I think it is (and will be) the most viral part of today's space exploration era.

[NavidIsANoob]

The thing is; Curiosity doesn't need to be fast. There is no reason for it, and the folks over at NASA want everything as precise and careful as possible. If they have to be patient, so be it. At least they'll get the information they'll need.

[Cricrithezar]

Sadly, the laws of physics won't allow that, the signal (which is an electromagnetic wave aka light) needs 14 minutes to travel from earth to mars, therefore, this latency varies when Earth and mars are closer or further away