Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Space Industry and Business News .




MARSDAILY
Resume Working with First Scooped Sample
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 11, 2012


This pairing illustrates the first time that NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected a scoop of soil on Mars. It combines two raw images taken on the mission's 61st Martian day, or sol (Oct. 7, 2012) by the right camera of the rover's two-camera Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument. The right Mastcam, or Mastcam-100, has a telephoto, 100-millimeter-focal-length lens. The image on the left shows the ground at the location "Rocknest" after the scoop of sand dna dust had been removed. The image on the right shows the material inside the rover's scoop, which is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. For a larger version of this image please go here.

The team operating Curiosity decided on Oct. 9, 2012, to proceed with using the rover's first scoop of Martian material.

Plans for Sol 64 (Oct. 10) call for shifting the scoopful of sand and dust into the mechanism for sieving and portioning samples, and vibrating it vigorously to clean internal surfaces of the mechanism.

This first scooped sample, and the second one, will be discarded after use, since they are only being used for the cleaning process.

Subsequent samples scooped from the same "Rocknest" area will be delivered to analytical instruments.

Investigation of a small, bright object thought to have come from the rover may resume between the first and second scoop.

Over the past two sols, with rover arm activities on hold, the team has assessed the object as likely to be some type of plastic wrapper material, such as a tube used around a wire, possibly having fallen onto the rover from the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's descent stage during the landing in August.

Sol 63 activities included extended weather measurements by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station, or REMS.

The Sol 63 planning also called for panoramic imaging by the Mast Camera, or Mastcam, in the early morning light of Sol 64, before uplink of Sol 64 commands.

A Sol 61 raw image from the right Mast Camera, at, shows the location from which Curiosity's first scoop of soil was collected.

Sol 63, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, ended at 1:03 a.m. Oct. 10, PDT (4:03 a.m., EDT)

.


Related Links
Mars Science Laboratory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








MARSDAILY
Curiosity Update: Object Likely Benign Plastic from Curiosity Rover
Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 10, 2012
Curiosity's main activity in the 62nd sol of the mission (Oct. 8, 2012) was to image a small, bright object on the ground using the Remote Micro-Imager of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. The rover team's assessment is that the bright object is something from the rover, not Martian material. It appears to be a shred of plastic material, likely benign, but it has not been defi ... read more


MARSDAILY
Swedish breakthrough in space on NASA satellite with electronics from AAC Microtec

US appeals court lifts ban on Samsung-Google phone

Focus on space debris: Envisat

Weizmann Institute Scientists observe quantum effects in cold chemistry

MARSDAILY
Northrop Grumman Begins Production of EHF SatCom System for B-2 Bomb

Mutualink Selects Benchmark to Manufacture Interoperable Communications Systems on Global Scale

Lockheed Martin-Led Team to Begin Work on $4.6 Billion Defense Information Systems Agency Contract

Raytheon to provide Joint Tactical Terminal radios with latest security features to US Navy

MARSDAILY
India to launch 58 space missions in next 5 years

SpaceX Dragon Successfully Attaches To Space Station

Another Ariane 5 Enters Launch Campaign Queue

SpaceX capsule links up with space station: NASA

MARSDAILY
Soyuz is given the "go" for tomorrow's Arianespace launch with a pair of Galileo navigation spacecraft

Indian BrahMos using Russian GPS system

Apple had warning of mapping problems

Using LabSat in the absence of GPS

MARSDAILY
Chile deploys Israel's RecceLite system

Quickstep moves on Hercules order

Boeing: Boeing Receives $2 Billion C-17 Aircraft Sustainment Contract

Two flights grounded in China after phone threats: airline

MARSDAILY
Organic solar cells with high electric potential for portable electronics

MIT team builds most complex synthetic biology circuit yet

Origin of ultra-fast manipulation of domain walls discovered

Materials scientists prevent wear in production facilities in the electronics industry

MARSDAILY
Boeing Releases Updated Geospatial Data Management Tool

First images from e2v imaging sensors on SPOT 6 Earth observation satellite

New Commercial Imaging Spacecraft Progressing at Lockheed Martin as IKONOS Satellite Achieves 13 Years in Operations

SMOS has a better look at salinity

MARSDAILY
New methods might drastically reduce the costs of investigating polluted sites

Pollution row strangles Italian steel giant ILVA

S. Korean villagers evacuate after toxic leak

Council of war gathers for world's biodiversity crisis




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement