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Great historic event; congratulations to all involved. As for the images, hate to be a party pooper, but wasn't this thing supposed to be state of the art techn

by Nux 14y ago

Great historic event; congratulations to all involved. As for the images, hate to be a party pooper, but wasn't this thing supposed to be state of the art technology? What's with the shitty image quality?

icoder 14y ago
I was thinking exactly the same thing, kind of embarassed because it feels 'spoiled' (not the right word but can't find any better). Glad I'm not alone on this. My hopes are that this is simply my lack of understanding and that it's simply night there now (does it work like that?), or that not all systems are up and running yet.
josso 14y ago
We'll get better hi-res images, in color, later. They did after all just exclaim "We got thumbnails!" when the first image arrived.
Sharlin 14y ago
These images are from a couple of the four pairs of Hazard Avoidance Cameras (HazCams) installed around the body of the rover. Their function is primarily to provide stereoscopic images for the rover's machine vision to analyze, enabling the rover to autonomously steer itself to a degree and halt if an unexpected hazard (for instance, a large boulder) comes up during movement. The HazCams also had clear lens covers in place to protect the lenses from all the dust blown around by the landing rockets. These were not yet removed in the very first images -- indeed, the reason they're clear is that even if for some reason a cover gets stuck, a dusty image is better than no image at all. Moreover, as the first communications opportunity was rather short, and the high-bandwidth directional antenna is not yet unfolded, there was simply no bandwidth available to downlink very high-resolution images. The mast of the rover, containing the high-resolution NavCams and MastCams, is still folded up. If all goes well, it will be raised in a couple of days and higher-res images beamed up in due course. Here's a nice article on Curiosity's various cameras: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-226 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-226
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
larrydag 14y ago
The fact that there were any images at all is a testament to the awesome engineering done on the MSL project. There was no guaranty that any images would be available from the Hazcams. The images were broadcast up to Opportunity orbiting above because the MSL was on the other side of Mars and does not have a direct line to Earth. The Opportunity was also about to go over the horizon so it also was going to lose contact. It was a masterful ballet of engineering and precision timing. What a great achievement.
- Destroyer661 14y ago
  That would be Odyssey, not Opportunity. Opportunity is the rover =)
bane 14y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

by Nux 14y ago

icoder 14y ago

I was thinking exactly the same thing, kind of embarassed because it feels 'spoiled' (not the right word but can't find any better). Glad I'm not alone on this. My hopes are that this is simply my lack of understanding and that it's simply night there now (does it work like that?), or that not all systems are up and running yet.

josso 14y ago

We'll get better hi-res images, in color, later. They did after all just exclaim "We got thumbnails!" when the first image arrived.

Sharlin 14y ago

These images are from a couple of the four pairs of Hazard Avoidance Cameras (HazCams) installed around the body of the rover. Their function is primarily to provide stereoscopic images for the rover's machine vision to analyze, enabling the rover to autonomously steer itself to a degree and halt if an unexpected hazard (for instance, a large boulder) comes up during movement. The HazCams also had clear lens covers in place to protect the lenses from all the dust blown around by the landing rockets. These were not yet removed in the very first images -- indeed, the reason they're clear is that even if for some reason a cover gets stuck, a dusty image is better than no image at all. Moreover, as the first communications opportunity was rather short, and the high-bandwidth directional antenna is not yet unfolded, there was simply no bandwidth available to downlink very high-resolution images. The mast of the rover, containing the high-resolution NavCams and MastCams, is still folded up. If all goes well, it will be raised in a couple of days and higher-res images beamed up in due course. Here's a nice article on Curiosity's various cameras: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-226 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-226

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

larrydag 14y ago

The fact that there were any images at all is a testament to the awesome engineering done on the MSL project. There was no guaranty that any images would be available from the Hazcams. The images were broadcast up to Opportunity orbiting above because the MSL was on the other side of Mars and does not have a direct line to Earth. The Opportunity was also about to go over the horizon so it also was going to lose contact. It was a masterful ballet of engineering and precision timing. What a great achievement.

Destroyer661 14y ago
That would be Odyssey, not Opportunity. Opportunity is the rover =)

bane 14y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk