New Zealand Local Weather Forum

Climate and Science => Space, Science and Nature => Topic started by: TokWW on August 17, 2012, 07:30:11 AM

Title: NASA Curiosity Rover Instruments Explained briefly with Pic
Post by: TokWW on August 17, 2012, 07:30:11 AM

Instruments

The figure below shows the location of the ten science instruments on the rover. There are four categories of instruments: the remote sensing instruments Mastcam (Mast Camera) and ChemCam (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Chemistry and Microimaging) located on the remote sensing mast; the contact science instruments APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer) and MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) located on the end of the robotic arm; the analytical laboratory instruments CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) located inside the rover body; and the environmental instruments RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector), DAN (Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons), REMS (Rover Environmental Monitoring Station), and MARDI (Mars Descent Imager).

(http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/images/payload.jpg)

From here...

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/ (http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/)

Title: NASA Curiosity Rover Weather Data
Post by: TokWW on August 23, 2012, 09:26:30 PM

There is a site here displaying the current weather:

http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html (http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html)

See attached picture...current weather +- 1 hour of that on Mars... :)  The Spanish team have a suite of instruments on the Mars Scientific Laboratory - MSL - the Curiosity Rover.

Title: Re: NASA Curiosity Rover Instruments Explained briefly with Pic
Post by: David on August 23, 2012, 09:36:03 PM

7 hPa pressure.... not much of an atmosphere eh

Title: Re: NASA Curiosity Rover Instruments Weather Data on Mars
Post by: TokWW on August 23, 2012, 11:08:58 PM

Yes, about 1/400th of ours, but the REMS wind instrument is reading I think up to 20m/s I thought I saw one Sol recently.  I might be wrong - LOL!  But the humidity is interesting I find - at 7%.

You can catch up on Newsroom discussions with Q & A for the Media here...  sometimes one or two hour long sessions per day.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24889670 (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24889670)