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Martian Diaries
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If you've ever taken a picture out the window of a moving car, you know that some portions of the picture are crisp and in-focus but due to the motion of the car, others are blurred. When we were called to take a once-in-a-lifetime image of Curiosity's landing, the HiRISE team needed to make sure that picture of the rover was crisp even if the background surface was blurry. No pressure!
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Curiosity team members present their data to the scientific community at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.
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On Friday, Sanjeev Gupta, a Participating Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory mission, woke up in Pasadena and walked past his apartment complex's swimming pool to the parking garage.On Monday, Gupta had a very different commute to work, leaving his home near Greenwich, London, and boarding a local train into the city.
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A the end of a long day, rover drivers beam a stream of "0s" and "1s" through space, enacting the singular Space Age magic of turning a scientist's idea into a set of twists, turns, and scoops on the Red Planet.
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The Sample Analysis at Mars instrument team prepares for one final run-through before its first soil analysis.
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One scoopful coming right up, thanks to pointers from Curiosity's arm camera, MAHLI.
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Tension rises in mission control as the team awaits news of the first scooping operation of martian soil.
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Curiosity's first contact-science rock target was named as a memorial to JPL engineer, Jake Matijevic.
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What is it about the rover's pictures of itself that stop scientists in their tracks?
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How Curiosity's Long Term Planning team keeps mission objectives in full view.
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Feeling the Pressure: What Atmospheric Measurements tell us about Martian Weather
Sep 14, 2012 By Jeffrey Marlow
Atmospheric pressure readings from Curiosity reveal unusual patterns of martian weather.
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The rocks of Gale Crater may look Earth-like, but the weather tells a different story.
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A gap in the scientific action spurs poetic creativity.
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It's one thing to build a camera-to send it to Mars. It's another to actually see it there, whole, sound, and beautiful. Exactly as you intended, waiting patiently to do the job you designed it for.
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The CheMin team analyzes the instrument's initial run and finds some surprising signs of activity.
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Curiosity's final scientific instrument gets up and running.
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Going from cruise, to landing, to surface operations has been a bit crazy. Just talking about what Curiosity and I have been up to, and what a typical day is like for us.
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Sixty-eight minutes, two dozen scientists, two hours of science. Decisions must be made.
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Now that Curiosity has successfully spun its wheels and started moving across the floor of Gale Crater, rover drivers are starting to dream bigger.
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That SAM-I-am. That SAM-I-am! I do SO like that SAM-I-am! Say, I LIKE green PS3_Imon_AUX2 traces in RAM!
I do! I like them SAM-I-am!
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Curiosity's science team identified its first destination: Glenelg, a site where three types of terrain converge, offering a lot of bang for the team’s scientific buck.
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Mars rovers, by definition, rove. That’s kind of the point: to spin the wheels and carry scientific instruments across the landscape, facilitating the investigation of martian geology.
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The Mars Science Laboratory mission transitioned from one of the most impressive engineering feats in space exploration history to a scientific mission with enormous potential for discovery.
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In one corner of the Mars Science Laboratory mission operations floor, computer projectors beam constantly updating color-coded charts onto four large screens that cover the walls.
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Some of the most remarkable images of Curiosity released so far have come not from the seventeen cameras onboard the rover but from one traveling 300 kilometers overhead.
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Landing a rover like Curiosity on Mars is not easy. From a fiery launch to scintillating entry and the nerve-wracking landing, there’s a lot that could go wrong. But, it’s the final obstacle – the martian surface itself –
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Late on day seven (Sol 7) of Curiosity’s stay in Gale Crater, the science team gathered for its typical end-of-day meeting, eager to discuss... There was a phone call coming in, and it wasn’t one you decide to take later.
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Over the last nine months, Curiosity has been through a lot: the trauma of launch, the frigid vacuum of space, and the turbulent descent through the martian atmosphere.
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The Mars Science Laboratory science team tries to pin the tail on the landing site.
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I just got a message from Captain Suni Williams, commander of Expedition 32 and currently orbiting Earth in the International Space Station (ISS)
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At 12:20 a.m., after a jubilant press conference had been dismissed, after Will.i.am and Morgan Freeman had retreated to Hollywood, and after the pop-up gift shops had stopped selling Mars Science Lab
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Entry, Descent, and Landing is a stressful process for everyone, spiked with “seven minutes of terror” and its attendant grey hairs. But, enduring the tension as the head scientist of a tent-pole Mars mission is an entirely different experience.
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These are very exciting times, especially being an intern with the Mars Public Engagement Team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Why you may ask?
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“Where will you be watching Curiosity’s landing?” That’s the question floating around Pasadena today, in hotel lobbies and coffee shops, as an estimated 15,000 people have descended
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I was working late last night helping to put the finishing touches on the many ways that we're sharing tonight's landing with the world, but I did pause for a moment as the countdown clock on my screen raced past the one day mark.
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One day away from landing, and the countdown is almost over. The mission team preps for landing night.
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As Curiosity hurtles toward its landing site at Gale Crater, the Entry, Descent, and Landing team has taken center stage.
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The pre-landing frenzy is in full force down on the JPL mall, where countdown clocks tick away and a fountain provides dramatic percussion, like a constant Mission Impossible soundtrack.
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We just passed a major milestone! We sent the commands to the rover to get the sequence started up. If we did nothing else the rover would probably land ok even now. We keep knocking on wood, everything is going so well.
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It’s 4 days until landing. As I drove in to work this morning, I was thinking about the many things that we’ve fixed on the Mars Science Laboratory over the past 6 years.
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