NASA's new rover sends back first color image, video

By Alicia Chang

Associated Press

Published: Tuesday, Aug. 7 2012 9:23 a.m. MDT


NASA, Associated Press

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PASADENA, Calif. — NASA's Curiosity rover has beamed back its first color photo from the ancient crater where it landed on Mars and a video showing the last 2 1/2 minutes of its white-knuckle dive through the Martian atmosphere, a sneak peek of a spacecraft landing on another world.

The picture released Tuesday revealed a rust-tinged, pebbly landscape and the crater rim off in the distance. The six-wheel rover snapped the photo on the first day on the surface after touching down on Mars Sunday night. It took the shot with a camera at the end of its robotic arm, which remained stowed.

As Curiosity plunged through the atmosphere, a video camera captured the final moments. Nearly 300 low-quality thumbnails were sent back on Monday, which NASA processed into a short video.

As the video rolled on a big screen, scientists and engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory let out "oohs" and "aahs." The recording began with the protective heat shield falling away and ended with dust being kicked up as the rover was lowered by cables inside Gale Crater.

It was a preview of a spacecraft touchdown on another planet, since it'll take some time before high-resolution frames are transmitted, depending on other priorities.


Since parking itself inside a giant crater, Curiosity has steadily streamed home a flurry of photos. The first were grainy, black-and-white images of its wheel, Martian gravel and a mountain at sunset. The landscape in the color shot looked fuzzy because the camera was coated with dust as the rover touched the ground.


Extraordinary efforts were needed for the landing because the rover weighs one ton, and the thin Martian atmosphere offers little friction to slow down a spacecraft. Curiosity had to go from 13,000 mph to zero in seven minutes, relying on a heat shield, parachute and rockets to slow down. In the final few seconds, cables lowered it to the ground at 2 mph.




It won't start moving for a couple of weeks, because all the systems on the $2.5 billion rover have to be checked out. As it goes through its health checkups this week, it was expected to send back more stunning views of its surroundings.




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