Author Archives: jmknapp

Curiosity has taken over 30,000 images so far in its first four months on Mars. The rover has covered about 700 meters of terrain to date and it can be a challenge to figure out just where a given image … Continue reading →

Curiosity entered the the area dubbed Yellowknife Bay on sol 125 (Dec. 12) and after a few quick dashes around made a beeline to the outcrop on the north side of the depression, where it has been parked for several … Continue reading →

I made a web page that conveniently lists the latest raw images received from Curiosity. Here’s a screen shot: Check it out at: Curiosity MSL raw image browser

Here’s a calendar currently up through Sep. 30 that shows the rise and set times for the sun, earth, MRO, ODY and MEX at the MSL landing site.

Tesheiner at unmannedspaceflight.com took my slope map and tiled it for use with Google Earth (actually Google Mars). To try it out, right click and save this kml file: Gale slope map KML file Then open it with Google Earth. … Continue reading →

Rover driver Paolo Bellutta notes on the forum at unmannedspaceflight.com that JPL uses a three-color scheme in making their slope maps for traversability analysis: 0°-10°: grayscale — very little slip on any terrain 10°-12.5°: blue — some slip on sand, little slip on bedrock … Continue reading →

The good people working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona have provided several digital terrain model (DTM) files of the expected MSL landing site at Gale Crater. These files give, at a resolution … Continue reading →

As MSL enters Mars’ atmosphere, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to photograph it, along with receiving MSL’s radio signals for later rebroadcast to Earth. Here’s an animation I made showing the predicted view of MRO’s HiRISE camera, using orbit … Continue reading →

MSL will land in the relatively flat upper left landscape shown in this mosaic of images taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. From there, the rover will travel to the more rugged landscape to the lower … Continue reading →

A blog about the Mars Science Laboratory mission to Mars, scheduled to land August 5, 2012 at 10:18 pm Pacific Time.