The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa)
reported on Wednesday that its latest Mars rover, Curiosity, was
healthy and was continuing to check out its systems and
“familiarise itself with its new home”. The $2.5-billion rover
successfully landed near Aeolis Mons in the Gale Crater on
Monday morning, South African time. (Aeolis Mons has been
nicknamed Mount Sharp by the Curiosity science team in honour of
a US geologist.) During Wednesday, the rover mission control
team will raise Curiosity’s mast, which carries a camera and
laser turret mounting seven of its 17 cameras and which will
give a human-scale view and will be used for navigation and
remote sensing. After being raised and checked out, the turret
will be rotated to allow the rover’s Navcam navigation cameras
to do a 360˚ pan. (The laser will be used to study rocks at a
distance. It will be used to vaporise a tiny part of interesting
rocks, with this vapour then being analysed to determine whether
they are worth closer analysis.) The