ChemCam sends digital ‘thumbs up’ PASADENA, Calif., August 6,
2012—Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover
ChemCam team got a digital thumbs up about the operational
readiness of their instrument just hours after the rover landed
on Martian soil late Sunday evening. Los Alamos National
Laboratory planetary scientist Roger Wiens, Principal
Investigator of the ChemCam Team, confirmed that the instrument
sent word to its handlers on Earth that it was alive and
healthy. "Following the fantastic landing of Curiosity on Mars,
ChemCam proceeded with an aliveness test within an hour of
landing," Wiens announced. "This was essentially the same
routine as performed five months earlier in the middle of its
cruise (to Mars). We are giving the all-clear from our
perspective to raise the (rover) mast on Sol 2. All systems are
go!" |Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the
French Space Agency examine data from the Mars Science
Laboratory Curiosity rover from inside the ChemCam Operations
Center