Questions tagged [curiosity]

Questions regarding the Curiosity rover launched by NASA for the purpose of Mars exploration.

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Why does the Curiosity rover camera image resolution have "milliradians" as a unit?

NASA's published specs for the Curiosity rover cameras says that the image resolution is in milliradians per pixel. Which is odd because image resolution is measured in physical size units, i.e. ...
spaceamoeba1010's user avatar
6 votes
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Why wasn't the MSL landing ellipse in Gale Crater placed further South?

This paper documents the final landing site selection process for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. One of the cons associated with Gale Crater (as pointed out in Table 10 of the paper), was ...
olamarre's user avatar
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Why did Spirit (MER-A) lose a wheel?

I was watching a documentary called Expedition Mars: Spirit and Opportunity (It's really good, I recommend it, you can find it on Disney+) and it said Spirit lost control of its frontmost right side ...
Deko Revinio's user avatar
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Rover wheel placement

Why are the center wheels of the Curiosity rover not in line with the chassis? I understand when turning, one side is in line with an arc it will make. Would the other side's wheels not be on the same ...
Mohit A.'s user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
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Is there any chance that Opportunity survived, but NASA kept pinging it at the wrong time?

In 2018, NASA's beloved little Opportunity (oppy) was declared dead after a dust storm "killed" it. It may still be OK, but when NASA began recovery effort, they pinged oppy when it was ...
Deko Revinio's user avatar
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Is my calculation of the current day/sol of current Mars month accurate?

I'm working on providing Mars related data for a project. I'm using 2 points of data that are available to me from Rover Environmental Monitoring Station at the Centro de Astrobiologia. The 2 data ...
Nate Thompson's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
264 views

Why did Curiosity perform TCMs?

Why did Curiosity perform TCM (Trajectory Correction Maneuver)s 1 through 5? 6 makes sense since it needed to adjust course to actually once in the SOI, but the others don't. I understand that this ...
Starship - On Strike's user avatar
7 votes
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Could and should not the search for the location(s) of the Martian methane spikes become the main scientific objective for the Curiosity rover?

In Nature Geoscience's article Independent confirmation of a methane spike on Mars and a source region east of Gale Crater is announced that the reported methane spike on sol 305 by the Tunable Laser ...
Cornelis's user avatar
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Do Curiosity and Perseverance have gyrocompasses? Has any rover had one? If so, what kind and how do they work?

There is discussion of a gyrocompass in comments on the page How does Curiosity know how to point and move it's high gain antenna in real time? but so far I don't think there is a hard "Yes&...
uhoh's user avatar
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Are there any selfies of Curiosity or Perseverance with their high gain antenna deployed and "looking up"?

The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have high gain antenna arrays on a mechanical arm that can rise up and point towards Earth and communicate directly. Has the Curiosity rover ever communicated ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How many watts of electricity are available for systems during a Mars transit?

The 40+ year old Voyager probes have three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) currently producing 249 watts, losing around 4 watts per year. They began with 470 Watts. The Curiosity Rover's ...
Dan Sorensen's user avatar
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What is MAHLI's theoretical or expected best optical resolution? How was it defined? Was it verified on Mars?

The block quote in this answer to Has Curiosity ever taken a good hard look at the dirt covering its top surface? Can it? Have individual particles been sized? says that at a focus distance of 2.5 ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Does Perseverance have a SAM-like instrument? [duplicate]

Curiosity had an instrument called SAM onboard that did gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. Do any of the instruments on Perseverance include these capabilities? If not, why were they deemed ...
usernumber's user avatar
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What are the maximum data capacities of the active rovers on Mars?

Many rovers have been sent to Mars and, as now, some are still working there. Does anyone know the maximum data capacity of each active rover? Curiosity Perseverance Zhurong
RANSARA009's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
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After nine years on Mars, has anything on Curiosity broken yet?

As per Wikipedia's Curiosity (rover), it landed nine years ago today at 6 August 2012, 05:17:57 UTC. This is yet another testament to NASA spacecraft reliability. Since landing, has anything actually ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How does the Dragonfly helicopter for Titan compare to Perseverance, Ingenuity and a human in terms of size, mass, weight and daily range?

It wasn't until Are Perseverance's wheels really this big? that I realized just how big Curiosity and Perseverance probably are. Writing What is the pop-up circular disk with spiral pattern in ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Does curiosity's RTG generate neutrons as this NASA CheMin X-ray detection system webpage suggests? If so, how?

mars.nasa.gov's CheMin for Scientists (found here) says (about half-way down): Detection of X­-ray Photons by the CCD CheMin will use a 600 × 600 E2V CCD-224 frame transfer imager operated with a 600 ...
uhoh's user avatar
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How does Curiosity's X-ray diffractometer work? Does it measure only one angle at a time or does it have an area detector?

Per this answer to Are quasicrystals common on the Moon and Mars?, Curiosity has an X-ray diffractometer. X-ray diffraction from 3D crystals can (begin to) be understood by embracing Bragg's law. A 3D ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Have any Mars surface spacecraft had downward-pointing radiometers to measure the surface temperature? (not air temperature)

NASA's Insight; Weather gives us regular weather updates from Insight's location on Mars, an example is shown below. Temperature is of the air around the lander. Question: But does or has Insight or ...
uhoh's user avatar
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8 votes
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Has Curiosity ever taken a good hard look at the dirt covering its top surface? Can it? Have individual particles been sized?

A reasonable answer to any one of the three enumerated parts gets the bounty! I added some dirty pictures of Curiosity to Curiosity is still dirty! after August 9, 2018 (Sol 2137), and in this March ...
uhoh's user avatar
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6 votes
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White crack infill on the surface of Mars in the Gale Crater

The following picture, taken by the Curiosity rover in the Gale Crater on Mars in 2016 shows what appears to be a cracked Martian surface, with the Egg Rock nickel-iron meteorite. Ignoring the ...
Fred's user avatar
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Why did the engineers at NASA's JPL put a Morse code on the wheels of Curiosity?

The Engineers at NASA's JPL made Curiosity's tires have a morse code imprint on them so that it would spell out JPL in the Martian soil. However, it has led to many cracks and deformations in the ...
Đαrkraι's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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How cold do Curiosity's & Perseverance's appendages get at night with all those sensitive cameras and lasers?

cropped from PIA19920: Curiosity Self-Portrait at 'Big Sky' Drilling Site MastCam-Z, ChemCam/SuperCam and MAHLI are optical systems and ChemCam includes a telescope and a pulsed laser, but the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Are there still no mission updates for Perseverance like there are for Curiosity?

Mission updates for the Mars Curiosity rover in the first months of the mission starting in August 2012 happened almost every day with detailed information about drive planning, the use of the ...
Cornelis's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Are the Perseverance rover's "drivers" working on Martian sols or Earth days right now?

Business Insider's What is it like to drive the Perseverance rover remotely? A NASA engineer explains the challenges of piloting the vehicle's journey across Mars. includes the following discussion of ...
uhoh's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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What eventually happened to the Curiosity/Perseverence cruise stages?

The first event to occur when Curiosity or Perseverance arrived at Mars was the separation of the cruise stage. What were the ultimate destinations of the cruise stages? Continuing on in space? (...
DrSheldon's user avatar
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When the Mars 2020 and Mars Science Laboratory missions were in deep space, what antennas did they have available to communicate with Earth?

This thorough answer to Did the Curiosity and Perseverance rover brains do the driving from Earth to Mars? explains that during deep space flight the rovers' computers were doing most of the thinking ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Did the Curiosity and Perseverance rover brains do the driving from Earth to Mars?

This interesting answer to Why did NASA intentionally crash-land the Curiosity and Perseverance sky cranes on Mars? leads me to wonder if the Curiosity and Perseverance rover computers were in charge ...
uhoh's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
118 views

Could the flyaway of the Curiosity/Perseverance skycrane be aimed in a particular direction?

The Perseverance rover is collecting samples of Martian rocks and soil, which will be picked up and returned to Earth on a future mission. In this comment to another question, I note that the sample ...
DrSheldon's user avatar
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2 votes
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Did the Mars 2020 Mission do any science that wasn't done by Perseverance proper?

Per answers to What is the equivalent of Curiosity's "MSL" in the context of Perseverance? What's the official name of the mission? Are the distinctions similar? Where does MSL end ...
uhoh's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
845 views

Sending Mars rover to the Moon

What would happen if a Mars rover (let it be Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity or Perseverance) would be sent to the Moon instead of the Mars? Let's not deal with the landing and let's ...
Kozuch's user avatar
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9 votes
1 answer
238 views

How heavy were Perseverance's balance masses?

Perseverance ejected two 70 kg "cruise balance masses" just before it became an airplane, to move its center of mass off axis and increase its angle of attack from 0° to about 16° to make it ...
Camille Goudeseune's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
551 views

Are there fluid disconnects that sever just before the Curiosity or Perseverance rovers separate from their cruise stages or landers?

In this comment under an answer to Heating Perseverance components prior to deployment I wrote: I think (but can not find a source yet) that there is even a loop of "hot water plumbing" ...
uhoh's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
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Perseverance drove for the first time on Mars ! (on Sol 14) Can I find somewhere how much and in what direction?

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. The image was acquired on March 6, 2021. (Sol 15) Click on the image, and then again, for a closer view. Is there an (interactive) map that shows the route the ...
Cornelis's user avatar
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7 votes
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Why did Curiosity not have a camera on board to record the landing?

So we've had a question asking why Perseverance had a camera to record the landing and one asking if Curiosity did, but I can't find any information about why Curiosity did not have a camera on board ...
Phiteros's user avatar
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Did the Perseverance and Curiosity skycranes land gently, or did they crash?

I don't think I found any references as to further fate of the skycranes after detaching the rovers other than them "flying away" from the rover. Does NASA make any minimal effort to land ...
SF.'s user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
245 views

How long will the "Send Your Name to Mars" chips aboard the Mars Landers and Rovers last?

I'm talking about the Chips NASA has placed on Curiosity, InSight and Perseverance: You could enter you name on https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/future and NASA etched your name on ...
RAD6000's user avatar
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28 votes
7 answers
6k views

Curiosity and Perseverance landing - with so much dust blown everywhere, what's the point of the skycrane?

Curiosity and Perseverance were landed using the rather complex skycrane system because it would prevent the rockets from contaminating the landing site. But the video shows a great deal of dust being ...
ikrase's user avatar
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5 votes
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Why did NASA intentionally crash-land the Curiosity and Perseverance sky cranes on Mars?

The sky cranes for both the Curiosity and Perseverance landing systems were both intentionally crashed into Mars. According to this answer regarding intentional crash-landing of spacecraft in general, ...
taltman's user avatar
  • 151
4 votes
1 answer
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How far will Curiosty be removed from Perseverance?

I'd like to know the distance between the Curiosity rover on Mars (currently at Mount Sharp, I believe) and the landing site of the Perseverance rover (the Jezero crater). Is there an application or ...
theWrongAlice's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
79 views

Sources for Mars rover sensor data

Is it possible to get sensor data from past or present martian rovers sent by NASA? Specifically, I'm looking for accelerometer and wheel torque data from the rovers. I've searched their "...
Diesel's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
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Why doesn't the Perseverance rover have markers on its wheels like Curiosity?

The wheels of the Curiosity rover have hole patterns spelling J-P-L in Morse code. The reason why these existed in the first place was to help vision-based odometry and distance measurements, ...
olamarre's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
751 views

Why is NASA sending wavy grousers to Mars?

In this answer to What are the lines on the wheels of the Perseverance rover called? Are they different than Curiosity's? and in sources linked therein we've learned that the lines across the business ...
uhoh's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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Do aeroshells really get hotter than the surface of the sun?

This answer to How to design heatshield bluntness? says: Curiosity reentry dumped about 98% of its entry energy into the atmosphere, the aeroshell can still get to be temps greater than the surface ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
0 votes
1 answer
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What is the baseline for carbon isotope ratios?

In the Martian atmosphere, the ratio between concentrations of carbon-13 to carbon-12 has been measured, for example reported in Mahaffy, Paul R., et al. "Abundance and isotopic composition of ...
Wouter's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
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What is hot shoe and cold shoe in MMRTG?

As I was going through the book 'The Design and Engineering of Curiosity' by Emily Lakdawalla, I stumbled on these two words. Are they hot and cold section of thermocouple? What actually they do? The ...
Auberron's user avatar
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18 votes
3 answers
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Why exactly does Curiosity's RTG make more electricity on cold days?

There is a fascinating factoid in this answer to MMRTG- thermal and electrical output: The electric power of the thermocouples depends on cooling influenced by the environment. On a cold day on Mars ...
uhoh's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
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Has ChemCam been used to characterize the martian atmosphere?

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) can be used to measure the composition of a solid, a liquid or a gas. LIBS is the technology used in ChemCam of the Curiosity rover and in the SuperCam of ...
usernumber's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Did the Mars Science Laboratory do any science that wasn't done by Curiosity proper?

This answer to What is the equivalent of Curiosity's “MSL” in the context of Perseverance? What's the official name of the mission? Are the distinctions similar? got me thinking that answers to Where ...
uhoh's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
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What is the equivalent of Curiosity's "MSL" in the context of Perseverance? What's the official name of the mission? Are the distinctions similar?

Answers to Where does MSL end and Curiosity begin? explain the difference. There was much fanfare for the naming contest for the Perseverance rover, but I don't know what the mission is called. ...
uhoh's user avatar
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