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Watch NASA's Next Mars Rover Being Built Via Live 'Curiosity Cam'Watch NASA's Next Mars Rover Being Built Via Live 'Curiosity Cam'Related Links› On Twitter› Mission fact sheet› More information. Curiosity Cam takes you inside the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., so you can watch the next Mars rover being built. Technicians assembling and testing the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, are covered head- to- toe in "bunny suits." These white smocks, booties and facemasks help protect against Earthly contaminants hitching a ride to Mars.

The camera may be turned off periodically for maintenance. The rover may occasionally be out of view as it is moved around the clean room. When Curiosity Cam is off air, you will see a slideshow of Mars and rover images. Send questions or comments. Updates on the building of the Curiosity rover.

Going For A Spin - 0. Engineers ready the rover for space by taking it for a spin.

Curiosity's Stunt Double Takes a Spin - 0. Curiosity's stunt double takes a whirl around the Mars Yard. Next Mars Rover Gets a Test Taste of Mars Conditions - 0. A space- simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is temporary home this month for the Curiosity rover, which will land on Mars next year. Tests inside the 2. Martian surface conditions. After the chamber's large door was sealed last week, air was pumped out to near- vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 1.

Celsius (minus 2. Fahrenheit), and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars. Images of Curiosity in the chamber just before the door was sealed are at: http: //photojournal.

• From ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands, watch the replay of the event to celebrate the launch of the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, dedicated to.
• Plot summary, cast and crew information, and user comments.

PIA1. 38. 05 and http: //photojournal. PIA1. 38. 06 . Other portions of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, including the cruise stage, descent stage and backshell, remain in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where Curiosity was assembled and where the rover will return after the simulation- chamber tests. In coming months, those flight system components and the rover will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final preparations before the launch period of Nov. Watch Roskisprinssi Online Mic.

Dec. 1. 8, 2. 01. The mission will use Curiosity to study one of the most intriguing places on Mars - - still to be selected from among four finalist landing- site candidates. It will study whether a selected area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed. Read more. Advanced NASA Instrument Gets Close- up on Mars Rocks - 0. NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will carry a next generation, onboard "chemical element reader" to measure the chemical ingredients in Martian rocks and soil.

The instrument is one of 1. Red Planet. Launch is scheduled between Nov.

Dec. 1. 8, 2. 01. August 2. 01. 2. The Alpha Particle X- Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument, designed by physics professor Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, uses the power of alpha particles, or helium nuclei, and X- rays to bombard a target, causing the target to give off its own characteristic alpha particles and X- ray radiation. This radiation is "read by" an X- ray detector inside the sensor head, which reveals which elements and how much of each are in the rock or soil. Identifying the elemental composition of lighter elements such as sodium, magnesium or aluminum, as well as heavier elements like iron, nickel or zinc, will help scientists identify the building blocks of the Martian crust. By comparing these findings with those of previous Mars rover findings, scientists can determine if any weathering has taken place since the rock formed ages ago.

All NASA Mars rovers have carried a similar instrument – Pathfinder's rover Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, and now Curiosity, too. Improvements have been made with each generation, but the basic design of the instrument has remained the same. APXS was modified for Mars Science Laboratory to be faster so it could make quicker measurements. On the Mars Exploration Rovers [Spirit and Opportunity] it took us five to 1.

Gellert, the intrument's principal investigator. We hope this will help us to investigate more samples.". Read more. Landing System Drop Test - 0. Engineers test the first- of- its- kind landing system on NASA's next Mars rover. NASA Mars Rover Will Check for Ingredients of Life - 0. PASADENA, Calif. - - Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA's next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean- room workers installed it into the rover. The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all- covering protective garb for these specialized workers than was needed for the building of NASA's earlier Mars rovers.

The instrument is Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. At the carefully selected landing site for the Mars rover named Curiosity, one of SAM's key jobs will be to check for carbon- containing compounds called organic molecules, which are among the building blocks of life on Earth.

The clean- room suits worn by Curiosity's builders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are just part of the care being taken to keep biological material from Earth from showing up in results from SAM. Organic chemicals consist of carbon and hydrogen and, in many cases, additional elements. They can exist without life, but life as we know it cannot exist without them. SAM can detect a fainter trace of organics and identify a wider variety of them than any instrument yet sent to Mars. It also can provide information about other ingredients of life and clues to past environments. Researchers will use SAM and nine other science instruments on Curiosity to study whether one of the most intriguing areas on Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for life and favorable for preserving evidence about whether life has ever existed there.

NASA will launch Curiosity from Florida between Nov. Dec. 1. 8, 2. 01. Mars Science Laboratory mission's spacecraft. The spacecraft will deliver the rover to the Martian surface in August 2. The mission plan is to operate Curiosity on Mars for two years.

Read more. NASA's Next Mars Rover to Zap Rocks With Laser - 1. A rock- zapping laser instrument on NASA's next Mars rover has roots in a demonstration that Roger Wiens saw 1. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Chemistry and Camera (Chem. Cam) instrument on the rover Curiosity can hit rocks with a laser powerful enough to excite a pinhead- size spot into a glowing, ionized gas. Chem. Cam then observes the flash through a telescope and analyzes the spectrum of light to identify the chemical elements in the target. That information about rocks or patches of soil up to about 7 meters (2.

Curiosity. With the 1. In late 2. 01. 1, NASA will launch Curiosity and the other parts of the flight system, delivering the rover to the surface of Mars in August 2. Wiens, a geochemist with the U. S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, serves as Chem. Cam's principal investigator.

An American and French team that he leads proposed the instrument during NASA's 2. Mars Science Laboratory project, whose rover has since been named Curiosity. In 1. 99. 7, while working on an idea for using lasers to investigate the moon, Wiens visited a chemistry laboratory building where a colleague, Dave Cremers, had been experimenting with a different laser technique. Cremers set up a cigar- size laser powered by a little 9- volt radio battery and pointed at a rock across the room. Read more. Camera on Curiosity's Arm Will Magnify Clues in Rocks - 1. PASADENA, Calif. - - More than one million people have watched assembly and testing of NASA's next Mars rover via a live webcam since it went online in October.