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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shoots multiple images for Self Portrait

December 31, 2012 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The robotic arm on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity held the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera in more than 50 positions in one day to generate a single scene combining all the images, creating a high-resolution, full-color portrait of the rover itself.

A larger version of the previously released self-portrait is now available online, along with an animation video showing how it was taken, and a practice self-portrait taken earlier by Curiosity’s test-rover double on Earth.

On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity’s mission on Mars (Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st, 2012), NASA’s Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover. This version of the full-color self-portrait includes more of the surrounding terrain than a version produced earlier (PIA16239). (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

The animation video below depicts how the rover moved its robotic arm on October 31st to record the component images that would be combined into the self-portrait. The same software that rover planners use when designing the rover’s moves was used to generate the animation.

The arm movements were practiced on Earth first, using the closest double that exists for Curiosity, the Vehicle System Test Bed rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. The rover team typically uses that rover to test maneuvers before they are tried by Curiosity.

The Vehicle System Test Bed’s self-portrait, from the engineering model of MAHLI on that rover, is at: www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16458 .

However, the Martian ground that the arm hides from view in those images is visible in alternative images chosen for the mosaic, taking the arm out of the scene.

During a two-year prime mission, researchers are using Curiosity’s 10 science instruments to assess whether the study area in Gale Crater ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, developed, built and operates MAHLI. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project’s Curiosity rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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