NASA's New Mars Rover Sends Higher-Resolution Image

 

This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption PASADENA, Calif. - About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.
The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html.
"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," said John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from? It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our new home on Mars."
While the image is twice as big in pixel size as the first images beamed down from the rover, they are only half the size of full-resolution Hazcam images. During future mission operations, these images will be used by the mission's navigators and rover drivers to help plan the vehicle's next drive. Other cameras aboard Curiosity, with color capability and much higher resolution, are expected to be sent back to Earth over the next several days.

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Two UT Scientists to Begin Searching for Potential Habitats for Life on Mars

Working from Pasadena, California, the team will guide the rover to collect soil material and powdered rock samples using its robotic arm to gather, filter and transfer them into the rover's analytical system. Kah and other scientists will then use an instrument capable of detecting both organic molecules and the isotopic signatures often left in rocks by microbial metabolisms.

NASA's Curiosity rover is scheduled to land on Mars Sunday. Then, the work will begin for two University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professors searching for potentially habitable environments on the red planet.
Linda Kah and Jeffrey Moersch, associate professors in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, are an integral part of the NASA team working on the rover.
The Curiosity rover is looking for clues to whether the Martian surface has ever had an environment capable of evolving or potentially sustaining life. Critical evidence may include liquid or frozen water, organic compounds, or other chemical ingredients related to life.



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NASA Tests Hypersonic Inflatable Heat Shield

Launch.


A large inflatable heat shield developed by NASA's Space Technology Program has successfully survived a trip through Earth's atmosphere while travelling at hypersonic speeds up to 7,600 mph. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) was launched by sounding rocket at 7:01 a.m. Monday from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.
The purpose of the IRVE-3 test was to show that a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed during planetary entry and descent, or as it returns to Earth with cargo from the International Space Station.
"It's great to see the initial results indicate we had a successful test of the hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator," said James Reuther, deputy director of NASA's Space Technology Program.
"This demonstration flight goes a long way toward showing the value of these technologies to serve as atmospheric entry heat shields for future space."
IRVE-3, a cone of uninflated high-tech rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat resistant materials, launched from a three-stage Black Brant rocket for its suborbital flight.
About 6 minutes into the flight, as planned, the 680-pound inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, and its payload separated from the launch vehicle's 22-inch-diameter nose cone about 280 miles over the Atlantic Ocean.


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NASA Selects Space Launch System Advanced Booster Proposals

The initial SLS configuration will use two five-segment solid rocket boosters similar to the solid rocket boosters that helped power the space shuttle to orbit. The evolved SLS vehicle will require an advanced booster with significant increase in thrust from any existing U.S. liquid or solid boosters.

NASA has selected six proposals to improve the affordability, reliability and performance of an advanced booster for the Space Launch System (SLS). The awardees will develop engineering demonstrations and risk reduction concepts for SLS, a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
"The initial SLS heavy-lift rocket begins with the proven hardware, technology and capabilities we have today and will evolve over time to a more capable launch vehicle through competitive opportunities," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"While the SLS team is making swift progress on the initial configuration and building a solid baseline, we also are looking ahead to enhance and upgrade future configurations of the heavy lift vehicle. We want to build a system that will be upgradable and used for decades."
Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft, including NASA's Orion multipurpose vehicle, for crew and cargo missions SLS will enable NASA to meet the president's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s.

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NASA to test inflatable heat shield on July 21

IRVE-3 artist's concepts composite. Photo: NASA/AMA.

WALLOPS ISLAND, VIRGINIA (BNS): NASA Space Technology Programme researchers will launch and deploy a large inflatable heat shield aboard a rocket travelling at hypersonic speeds during a technology demonstration test this weekend.

The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) test is designed to demonstrate lightweight, yet strong, inflatable structures that could become practical tools for exploration of other worlds or as a way to return items safely to Earth from the International Space Station.

During this technology demonstration test flight, NASA's IRVE-3 payload will try to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds -- Mach 5, or 3,800 mph to 7,600 mph, NASA said.

The IRVE-3 experiment will fly aboard a three-stage Black Brant XI launch vehicle for its suborbital flight. The payload and the heat shield, which looks like a large, uninflated cone of inner tubes, will be packed inside the rocket's 22-inch-diameter nose cone. About six minutes after launch, the rocket will climb to an altitude of about 280 miles over the Atlantic Ocean.

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Inflatable Spacecraft Heat Shield Set to Launch

Technicians at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., mated the components of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment into the nosecone and sounding rocket. Credit: NASA/Kathy Barnstorff. For a larger version of this image please go here.

NASA technicians and engineers are putting the finishing touches on a unique experiment designed to demonstrate that an inflatable aeroshell/heat shield could be used to protect spacecraft when entering a planet's atmosphere or returning here to Earth.
Workers from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore and NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., are preparing the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) for launch from Wallops as early as July 21.
IRVE-3 is one of NASA's many research efforts to develop new technologies to advance space travel. It's part of the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator or HIAD project - within the NASA Space Technology Program's Game Changing Development Program.
"We have developed a 10-foot (3 meters) diameter heat shield that we are packing - uninflated - into the 22-inch (56 centimeters) diameter nose cone of a three-stage Black Brant XI sounding rocket," said Robert Dillman, IRVE-3 chief engineer. The inflated structure will protect a payload that consists of four segments including the inflation system, steering mechanisms, telemetry equipment and camera gear.


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