Mars rover Curiosity already snapping photos

About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

View the Hazcam image at nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html.

"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," says John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from?"


Curiosity landed at 1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6 near the foot of a mountain three miles tall. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech.

For more information on the mission, visit:

The NASA mission's site

A two-part series on sizing motors for rovers

The ISS SpaceX project