Mars Cameras

This image presents a selection of the 23 cameras on NASA's 2020 Mars rover. Many are improved versions of the cameras on the Curiosity rover, with a few new additions as well. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. New Cameras on Mars! InSight Begins Sharing Raw Images on Mission Website There was jubilation when InSight landed, but I'm just as happy to be writing about a distinct InSight event: The flow of raw images sent from Mars, straight to the Web, has begun. If you thought planet Earth was the only place where life existed, then you are quite mistaken. There’s life on Mars, though at a microbial level.

Astronomy, Carl Sagan Institute

By | Staff , A&S Communications

One very important tool for observing Mars, whether through the eyepiece or via camera, is a set of coloured filters. These are extremely useful to help contrast certain details far more clearly than a simple unfiltered view. The most useful filters for observing Mars are either a Wratten 23A or 25. The Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its telephoto lens to capture Mount Sharp in the morning illumination on Oct. 13, 2019, the 2,555th Martian day, or sol, of the miss. A Dramatic View of Mars' Mount Sharp.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has been on a journey to Mars since its launch in July 2020 and is set to land on the red planet on Feb. 18. The rover will look for evidence of ancient life and collect soil and rock samples at a part of Mars just north of its equator known as Jezero Crater — the site of an ancient delta.

As part of the mission, Cornell University scientists are working on a number of aspects critical to its success, from stereo cameras to weather instrumentation to ground penetrating radar.

Download this video here: https://cornell.box.com/v/Mars2020Perseverance

Alex Hayes is a professor of astronomy and a co-investigator for Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z — a set of stereo cameras that will be the “eyes of the rover.” Hayes says these cameras may have to adjust to their new Martian environment after landing and his team has been preparing to ensure they operate at peak performance once on the red planet.

“Many of the final parameters that we use to calibrate the cameras so that we can use them for science can’t happen until we go on Mars, simply because the Martian environment is very hard to recreate in the lab. So, anything that’s happened over the last eight months, anything that’s going to be temperature dependent once it’s in the Martian environment, are things we’re not going to know about until we’re actually there. One of the first things the team will do after landing is acquire data to validate and update the pre-launch instrument calibrations.”

“The Perseverance rover is just step one of three in the concept of Mars sample return. Our job is to land at Jezero, identify the environment, provide the context and cache the samples that will eventually be brought back to Earth. So, this is really the start of a much larger endeavor. It’s more than just a single mission, it’s the start of a campaign. And so that is on our minds and that makes things a little different than previous missions because you’re not only thinking about this mission, you’re thinking about how this feeds forward into the follow-up.”

For media inquiries, contact Linda Glaser, news & media relations manager, lbg37@cornell.edu, 607-255-8942.

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Alexander Hayes

Mars 2020 Engineering Cameras

Associate Professor, Director, Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Director of the Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility