MSL Curiosity Lands Safely in Gale Crater, Landing and Commissioning Activity Period 1A, sols 0-8 Options

[Eluchil]

I see some NavCam and MAHLI images on the JPL raw site. The MAHLI looks like it missed the crater rim and just shows the sky. Based on the filenmaes it looks like two images, but I can't spot any differences in an eyeball check. There are a number of black pixels which I thought might be cosmic ray hits but they match up in the two images. Bad CCD elements? Dust?

The NavCam thumbnails show that it is alive and functioning, but still stowed. I am very excited to see the full NavCam panorama once the Remote Sensing Mast is deployed.

[Explorer1]

moozoo:Those have all been answered before, all in the negative.

The heat shield, on the other hand, is another matter. I wonder if it turned inside out like Oppy's did. The engineers will want to know its performance for sure.

As for exposure, the tungsten masses would have done a good job; heavy, falling very fast, and chemically pure. A big hole would be hard to not excavate.
Just a matter of spotting them w/ MRO and seeing which is closest to MSL's future path.

[SFJCody]

I see some NavCam and MAHLI images on the JPL raw site. The MAHLI looks like it missed the crater rim and just shows the sky.

I'm seeing horizon/rim of Gale, just very washed out.

[remcook]

Late at the party, but a big congratulations to the MSL team! Already we're seeing some mouthwatering pictures. Looking forward to a succesful mission

[Eluchil]

I'm seeing horizon/rim of Gale, just very washed out.

Yep. The processed version posted by JPL and linked by Explorer1 shows this clearly. The raws are tilted about 135 degrees.

[James Sorenson]

Looks like there is alot of dust on the cover of MAHLI. You can see some rocks...After some sharpening and brightness adjustments.

[Tesheiner]

Could this be the descent stage? I doubt it's the shadow, but the metal components might reflect light...

Don't think so. It looks like a dust grain on the lens.

[Astro0]

Ah, I remember back to the early days of the Forum when Spirit and Opportunity landed.
How we'd have so much fun just sharpening and contrasting images until the better quality images came along

Takes me back to those good ol' days

Go Curiosity!!

[xflare]

The NAVCAMs look quite dusty too

[jamescanvin]

If I understood the talk at the last press conference then the stowed MAHLI image should fit into the scene something like this.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Doc]

If I understood the talk at the last press conference then the stowed MAHLI image should fit into the scene something like this.

Yeah it should be more or less there. The image caption says northwards. Brilliant image james!

[gregson]

Where I can download detailed photos of landing place to load them to Google Earth? Maybe also some kmz file with location of Curiosity? Please.

[Eluchil]

During the landing the EDL commentator said "we found a nice flat place, we're coming in ready for skycrane" (around 28:17 in this video). I wonder what he meant by that--that they just passively found a nice flat place? By what means did they get a measure of the flatness?

My first thought was that he was referring to the landing ellipse as a whole, but in context it seems like it might be a translation of the immediately preceding chatter that the "altitude error" was 5.9 m. The low error reflects convergent altitude measurements, perhaps the IMU versus the radar that was talked about at one of the press conferences.

[dshaffer]

But their shadows are cast on the backshell, as your wonderful 10x reveals, ...good enough for me

I think the shadow is from the cone at the top of the backshell......

[Tesheiner]

Where I can download detailed photos of landing place to load them to Google Earth? Maybe also some kmz file with location of Curiosity? Please.

The maps on Google Earth / Mars were updated (yesterday?) and currently cover the whole landing site at HiRISE resolution. Just open it in "mars mode" and zoom in at Gale Crater (or double click on Mars Gallery > Rovers and Landers > MSL Curiosity Rover) and you are there.