Curiosity Mars rover could offer stunning views of Red Planet (+video)

The huge NASA rover slated to land on Mars Sunday night (Aug. 5) is expected to give scientists and laypeople alike some amazing views of the Red Planet.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover, the heart of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, will try to determine if Earth's neighbor is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life. To help address this question, the six-wheeled robot is carrying 10 science instruments — and a wealth of high-tech camera gear.

Like its older Mars rover siblings Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity comes equipped with cameras mounted on a head-like stalk (called the Remote Sensing Mast, or RSM), providing a point of view similar to what a person might experience. Unlike previous rovers, however, Curiosity’s imaging system — called Mastcam — has features that will offer a whole new look at Mars.

Developed by the San Diego company Malin Space Science Systems, Mastcam is composed of two separate cameras that sit side by side, not unlike a pair of eyes, just below the ChemCam instrument on Curiosity’s "head." Mastcam will allow color images to be captured directly. [Curiosity Rover: 11 Amazing Facts]

"It will take color in the same way as a consumer digital camera,” said Michael Ravine, advanced projects manager at Malin. "It’s as 'true' as your phone camera."

In addition, Mastcam can capture stereoscopic images in infrared, plus a whole range of wavelengths that are of importance to scientific goals.

Both cameras are fixed-length; zoom motors may be common in even the cheapest point-and-shoot digital cameras, but in a spacecraft they would have added extra fuel-guzzling mass.

Still, one of the cameras has a focal length of 100 millimeters (4 inches) that can resolve objects a couple of inches across at 1,000 feet (300 meters). "I think that qualifies as telephoto," Ravine said.

Scientists no longer will have to assemble time-lapse footage from individual Mars images, for Mastcam also can take high-definition video. It will capture 720p color video at six frames per second.

"In the real world that’s not quite video, but compared to time-lapse images spaced 45 seconds apart, it’s close enough," Ravine said.

And Mastcam has the ability to store its own data. With 8 gigabytes of internal memory, Mastcam can hold 5,500 raw images, which can be compressed on the fly or just before transmission back to Earth.

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