On Wednesday 22 August 2012, JPL hosted another full media briefing. The room was not as full press as on the first 5 Sol media briefings.Participants in the press conference were:
Michael Watkins - Curiosity mission manager, JPL
Louise Jandura - Sampling system lead engineer, JPL
Ashwin Vasavada - Curiosity deputy project scientist, JPL
Igor Mitrofanov - Principal investigator of DAN
Javier Gomez-Elvira - Principal investigator of REMS
In the Media briefing within the Yellowknife landing quadrangle the actual landing site as denoted by the 4 corner wheels of Curiosity was named ‘Bradbury Landing’ in honor of Ray Bradbury, the Science Fiction writer that had a very special relationship with JPL. During his last visit at JPL in 2009 he was shown how to plan a drive of the MER rover Opportunity, trying his hand in the simulation software used for planning.
After two weeks of preparations Curiosity made wheel tracks driving 4 meters (16 feet) from her landings spot. It then rotated 120° and moved backward approximately 2 meter (8 feet). It took a lot of images, among which a 360° panorama.
Click here to see the entire panorama, which is composed of 23 frames arranged in a cylindrical projection.
The spacecraft is now about 5 meters (20 feet) away from its landing site.
The JPL briefing of August 21 was again only an audostream briefing with accompanying images.
The audiostream of the status briefing on the Curiosity rover’s mission to Mars’ Gale Crater can be found here
Leave Your Response