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Readying ChemCam This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover. The calibration target is one square and a group of nine circles that look dark in the black-and-white image. The calibration target set can be seen in the middle left in this image, to the right of the rover's power source. The materials used in these circles are the types of materials scientists anticipated they might encounter on Mars. The square is a titanium alloy with a painted edge.
An annotated version indicates where the target is.
The ChemCam instrument will be firing a series of powerful, but invisible, laser pulses at a target rock or soil. It is located on the rover's mast, near the Navigation camera that took this image. A telescopic camera known as the remote micro-imager will show the context of the spots hit with the laser.
This image was taken by the right-side Navigation camera on Aug. 16, 2012.
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Pre-Launch Calibration Target for ChemCam This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover before it was installed on the rover and readied for launch.
The target includes nine circles of materials scientists expect to see on Mars and one titanium square with a painted edge. According to the numbering in this image, the circles in the top row show four glass samples likely to represent Mars igneous rock compositions, plus a graphite rod on the right side. The bottom row shows four ceramic samples representing Mars sedimentary rock compositions and a titanium plate for wavelength calibration and laser diagnostic tests.
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Checking out ChemCam's View This mosaic shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover, as seen by the ChemCam's remote micro-imager. The 10 images incorporated in this mosaic were taken on Aug. 15.
The ChemCam instrument will be firing a series of powerful, but invisible, laser pulses at a target rock or soil. It is located on the rover's mast. A telescopic camera known as the remote micro-imager will show the context of the spots hit with the laser.
The calibration target has nine circles of different materials that scientists think the rover might encounter on Mars and one titanium-alloy square with a painted edge. The assembly is 5 inches (13 centimeters) long and incorporates targets fabricated in France and at Los Alamos National Laboratory in a metal body fabricated at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. In these images, scientists can see that the targets have different textures. Also visible in the titanium square are pits from laser firing tests before launch.
ChemCam's imager was provided by the French space agency (CNES) and was flight- qualified by the Institute of Space Astrophysics in Orsay, France (IAS).
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Curiosity sends back raw images for current and prior Sols based on commands sent by the mission team. The rover uses orbiters to relay back a lot of its data, and maximizes each opportunity when they pass by overhead. Curiosity stores any data not transmitted onboard. The rover will send back this data on later Sols according to the mission team's science and engineering priorities. That means these pages update whenever data comes back. Images are filed in the Sol the rover took the picture, not the Sol on which the rover sent the image back to Earth. Check back frequently for more discoveries from Mars!
Black spaces typically mean partial data has arrived, but Curiosity will fill in the rest of the data as soon as possible.
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This image was taken by Mastcam: Left (MAST_LEFT) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3 (2012-08-09 05:54:41 UTC) .
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems