When it’s not making cameos in Frequent Flyer ads for Qantas, the Mars Curiousity Rover is, well, investigating the red planet with all sorts of sensors, detectors and of course, cameras… of which it has 17. Not all of them are for happy snaps, though, as the video here explains.
Engineering camera team lead Justin Maki talks us through the rover’s photographic capabilities, pointing out the more obvious navigation and “Mast” cameras as well as the the practical “engineering” ones that help the rover get around.
For example, there are eight hazard avoidance cameras — four on the front and four on the back — which only capture in black and white. Then there’s the Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, secured to the underside of the rover that capture images of the rover’s arrival on Mars.
An interesting fact is the difference in resolution between the B&W and colour cameras — one megapixel and two megapixels, respectively — with Maki stating that one megapixel is all that’s needed for the B&W devices.