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   Curiosity Begins Driving at Bradbury Landing    
      
   August 22, 2012:  NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun driving from its   
   landing site, which scientists announced today they have named for the late   
   author Ray Bradbury.    
      
   Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive combined   
   forward, turn and reverse segments. This placed the rover roughly 20 feet (6   
   meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago.    
      
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSHDByiYXvg   
      
   This panorama shows the tire tracks from Curiosity's first test drive. On Aug.   
   22, 2012, the rover made its first move, going forward about 15 feet (4.5   
   meters), rotating 120 degrees and then reversing about 8 feet (2.5 meters).   
   Curiosity is about 20 feet (6 meters) from its landing site, now named   
   Bradbury Landing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech [Full image and caption]   
   [Latest images]    
      
   NASA has approved the Curiosity science team's choice to name the landing   
   ground for the influential author, who was born 92 years ago today and died   
   this year. The location where Curiosity touched down is now called Bradbury   
   Landing.    
      
   "This was not a difficult choice for the science team," said Michael Meyer,   
   NASA program scientist for Curiosity. "Many of us and millions of other   
   readers were inspired in our lives by stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of   
   the possibility of life on Mars."    
      
   http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16095.html   
      
   A close-up view of Curiosity's first tire tracks. Today's drive confirmed the   
   health of Curiosity's mobility system and produced the rover's first wheel   
   tracks on Mars, documented in images taken after the drive. During a news   
   conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the   
   mission's lead rover driver, Matt Heverly, showed an animation derived from   
   visualization software used for planning the first drive.    
      
   "We have a fully functioning mobility system with lots of amazing exploration   
   ahead," Heverly said.    
      
   Curiosity will spend several more days of working beside Bradbury Landing,   
   performing instrument checks and studying the surroundings, before embarking   
   toward its first driving destination approximately 1,300 feet (400 meters) to   
   the east-southeast.   
      
   "Curiosity is a much more complex vehicle than earlier Mars rovers. The   
   testing and characterization activities during the initial weeks of the   
   mission lay important groundwork for operating our precious national resource   
   with appropriate care," said Curiosity Project Manager Pete Theisinger of JPL.   
   "Sixteen days in, we are making excellent progress."    
      
      
   Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA   
      
   More Information    
   The Curiosity science team has begun pointing instruments on the rover's mast   
   for investigating specific targets of interest near and far. The Chemistry and   
   Camera (ChemCam) instrument used a laser and spectrometers this week to   
   examine the composition of rocks exposed when the spacecraft's landing engines   
   blew away several inches of overlying material.    
      
   The instrument's principal investigator, Roger Weins of Los Alamos National   
   Laboratory in New Mexico, reported that measurements made on the rocks in this   
   scoured-out feature called Goulburn suggest a basaltic composition. "These may   
   be pieces of basalt within a sedimentary deposit," Weins said. [more]    
      
   In a career spanning more than 70 years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of   
   readers to dream, think and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short   
   stories and nearly 50 books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays,   
   teleplays and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of   
   our time.    
      
   His groundbreaking works include "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles,"   
   "The Illustrated Man," "Dandelion Wine," and "Something Wicked This Way   
   Comes." He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's classic film adaptation of   
   "Moby Dick," and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his   
   stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his   
   teleplay of "The Halloween Tree."    
      
   Curiosity's First Daredevil Stunt -- Science@NASA    
      
   Where Will Curiosity Go First? -- Science@NASA    
      
   Strange but True: Curiosity's Sky Crane -- Science@NASA    
      
   Opportunity Runs the First Martian Marathon -- Science@NASA    
      
   Mars Landing Sky Show -- Science@NASA    
      
   NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of   
   Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project, including   
   Curiosity, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed   
   and built the rover.    
      
   More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and   
   http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at:   
   http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://   
   ww.twitter.com/marscuriosity .    
      
      
   Regards,   
      
   Roger    
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LA - (1:3828/7)