Curiosity Rover Pictures

Crusader

Crusader

Expert Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2005
Messages
3,912
The mast was deployed successfully on Sol 2, so the rover is looking around fine. I think they are going to be taking some 360° panoramas on Sol 3.

Here's a full resolution shot of the heatshield falling away taking using the MARDI camera
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16021.html

Once these have all been downlinked they will make an awesome video of the descent (basically a full quality version of the current vid available)
 
Unhappy438

Unhappy438

Honorary Master
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
24,915
Fudzy said:
Given that it would take 22 minutes for light from mars to hit earth
Click to expand...

Closer to 12 minutes on average :) , but actually this is interesting because :

At its closest approach to earth, Mars is 4.15 light-minutes. At its farthest approach to earth, Mars is 20.8 light-minutes.
 
Last edited:
KleinBoontjie

KleinBoontjie

Honorary Master
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
14,607
So, how do they get that high resolution pictures downloaded so fast over such a long distance, when I'm struggling to upload 1 picture to facebook in the same time?
 
Unhappy438

Unhappy438

Honorary Master
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
24,915
beans100 said:
So, how do they get that high resolution pictures downloaded so fast over such a long distance, when I'm struggling to upload 1 picture to facebook in the same time?
Click to expand...

Crusader said:
Also interesting the data rate of transmissions at the moment:
Through Odyssey - 8k
Through MRO - 32k

MRO can later be upped to 2 Mbits if everything pans out.

Total amount of data from Curiosity downloaded so far is about 5MB.
Click to expand...

This was posted yesterday, not sure if it answers your question?
 
Crusader

Crusader

Expert Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2005
Messages
3,912
beans100 said:
So, how do they get that high resolution pictures downloaded so fast over such a long distance, when I'm struggling to upload 1 picture to facebook in the same time?
Click to expand...

Basically what they do is to download very small thumbnail images (64x64 px). They then choose the most important images and download the full versions of those (1024x10234). Even these are severely compressed at this stage and come out at less than 300KB for the full image.

As the systems all check out they will later up the speed at which they can transfer data.

Also you need to keep in mind that that's for images from Curiosity itself. The HiRISE images from MRO are from the orbiter itself which obviously work at a much higher bandwidth.

Edit: Checked and MRO can send data at speeds up to a maximum of 6 MBits/s

Also from the MSL site:
The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 500 bits per second to 32,000 bits per second (roughly half as fast as a standard home modem). The data rate to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is selected automatically and continuously during communications and can be as high as 2 million bits per second. The data rate to the Odyssey orbiter is a selectable 128,000 or 256,000 bits per second (4-8 times faster than a home modem).

An orbiter passes over the rover and is in the vicinity of the sky to communicate with the rover for about eight minutes at a time, per sol. In that time, between 100 and 250 megabits of data can be transmitted to an orbiter. That same 250 megabits would take up to 20 hours to transmit direct to Earth! The rover can only transmit direct-to-Earth for a few hours a day due to power limitations or conflicts with other planned activities, even though Earth may be in view much longer.

Mars is rotating on its own axis so Mars often "turns its back" to Earth, taking the rover with it. The rover is turned out of the field of view of Earth and goes "dark," just like nighttime on Earth, when the sun goes out of the field of view of Earth at a certain location when the Earth turns its "back" to the sun. The orbiters can see Earth for about 2/3 of each orbit, or about 16 hours a day. They can send much more data direct-to-Earth than the rover, not only because they can see Earth longer, but also because they have a lot of power and bigger antennas than the rover.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
LazyLion

LazyLion

King of de Jungle
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
105,603
20120808-214139_600126_505398079489650_1243379096_n.jpg
 
RiaX

RiaX

Executive Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
7,211
earth is looking browner from its textbook pictures

guess the planet is being BEE compliant rofl
 
unskinnybob

unskinnybob

Expert Member
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
3,788
Awesome photos. You guys figure they'll find the spot where men come from on this trip?
 
DrJohnZoidberg

DrJohnZoidberg

Honorary Master
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
23,995
Anybody know where I can watch/download the National Geographic documentary "Martian Mega Rover" that aired recently?
 
DJ...

DJ...

Banned
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
70,287
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Just to clarify, these panoramic shots are not from Curiosity, they are from Opportunity. In case there is any confusion.
Click to expand...

It's no wonder they sent in a new one - that's one mightily confused Rover. Or was he playing red rover with himself?

Confused_Rover.jpg
 
DrJohnZoidberg

DrJohnZoidberg

Honorary Master
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
23,995
DJ... said:
It's no wonder they sent in a new one - that's one mightily confused Rover. Or was he playing red rover with himself?

/snip
Click to expand...

Imagine there were intelligent beings on Mars, they would be like:

4276431_700b.jpg


Humans, send a craft 2 million miles and then it takes them a week for them to move 2 metres :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top