

The Special Terms are set forth in the Special Terms or in the Documentation for the Offering. Special Terms may apply to a particular Offering or to a particular category of user (for example, students). In addition, Offerings may be subject to special terms (“Special Terms”), including, for example, particular entitlements or restrictions on types of use. JPL, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.You may have an additional agreement signed directly with one or more Autodesk entities that supplements or amends these Terms (for example, an enterprise business agreement) (“Additional Agreement”).
SOL705 TERMS OF USE SERIES
The destinations on Mount Sharp offer a series of layers that recorded different chapters in the environmental evolution of early Mars. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project continues to use Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. Clay-bearing sedimentary rocks on the crater floor in an area called Yellowknife Bay yielded evidence of a lakebed environment billions of years ago that offered fresh water, all of the key elemental ingredients for life, and a chemical source of energy for microbes, if any existed there. During its first year of operations, it fulfilled its major science goal of determining whether Mars ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Last week, fresh commanding of the rover was suspended for two days while engineers confirmed that the A-side computer remains reliable as a backup.Ĭuriosity landed inside Gale Crater on August 5th, 2012, PDT (August 6th, 2012, EDT). Work in subsequent weeks of 2013 restored availability of the A-side as a backup in case of B-side trouble. It has been operating on its B-side computer since a problem with the A-side computer prompted the team to command a side swap in February 2013. Curiosity carries duplicate main computers. We didn’t imagine prior to landing that we would see this kind of challenge to the vehicle, but we’re handling it.”Īnother recent challenge appeared last week in the form of unexpected behavior by an onboard computer currently serving as backup.
SOL705 TERMS OF USE DRIVERS
“The rover drivers showed that they’re up to the task of getting around the really bad rocks.

“The wheels took some damage getting across Zabriskie Plateau, but it’s less than I expected from the amount of hard, sharp rocks embedded there,” said JPL’s Jim Erickson, project manager for Curiosity. The gold traverse line ends at Curiosity’s position as of J(Sol 705). The main map shows landforms near NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as the rover’s second anniversary of landing on Mars nears. The one-eighth mile (200 meters) across Zabriski Plateau was one of the longest stretches without a suitable detour on the redesigned route toward the long-term science destination. “We will cross a major terrain boundary.”įor about half of July, the rover team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, drove Curiosity across an area of hazardously sharp rocks called “Zabriskie Plateau.”ĭamage to Curiosity’s aluminum wheels from driving across similar terrain last year prompted a change in route planning to skirt such rock-studded terrain wherever feasible. “We’re coming to our first taste of a geological unit that’s part of the base of the mountain rather than the floor of the crater,” said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. The rover team is calling the outcrop “Pahrump Hills.” Those destinations are in an area beginning about 2 miles (3 kilometers) southwest of the rover’s current location, but an appetizer outcrop of a base layer of the mountain lies much closer - less than one-third of a mile (500 meters) from Curiosity.
