Selfies for Mars -Road

Planetary Society explains how Kuriositi removes itself on deserted Mars

In early August, the Kuriositi Mars -Road published a picture of himself on a small elevation. The photo was taken from an unusual low angle. On Mars, there is no one to remove Kuriositi against the backdrop of the landscape of the planet closest to the land, and therefore Rover has to rely on his own strengths and cameras, as well as on the ability of NASA engineers to glue panoramic photos from dozens of small pieces. Planetary Society tells how difficult it is to make panoramic pictures.

Curiositi has a total of four color cameras, they all differ in a different set of optics, but only one of them (it is called Mahli) is best suited for photographs of a third -party Rover. The automatic hand of Mahli has five degrees of freedom, which gives the camera significant flexibility and allows the Martian Rover from all sides to “fly through”.

Of course, initially the camera was not supposed to be used for panoramic selfie Kuriositi. Such pictures look impressive on the pages of magazines, but they carry little scientific information. But about a month before sending the Rover to Mars, NASA engineers, responsible for the operation of cameras, realized that the wide angle of the camera and the ability to remove the apparatus from the “back” made Mahli most attractive for panoramic pictures from a third party. It is quite difficult to use this camera - unlike other relatively strictly fixed on the rover, Mahli is located at the end of the automatic hand, and only the Rover pilots from NASA can control it. Moreover, not every specialist piloting the Markhod from the Earth is able to manage with the hand. When the cameras developers explained to the pilots what unexpected opportunities Mahli has, they did not have to persuade them for a long time.

Pilot Rover Joseph Karsen took up the development of the camera work scheme. His main task was to develop such a sequence of automatic hand movement so that the camera could take a sufficient number of pictures for gluing the panorama. It is necessary to ensure that the automatic hand does not hit the numerous antennas and protrusions on the corps of the rover, so that there are not a lot of personnel and that they all fold in a continuous three -dimensional panorama. You also need to monitor the lighting, shadow from the automatic hand and so that it itself does not fall into the frame. The scenario for preparing each picture is first worked out on Earth on a special test module, which is called Maggie. If Maggie tests are successful, and the automatic hand does not hurt anything, then the shooting program is sent to Mars.

According to Karsten, the Kuriositi team for two years was looking for a place for such an unusual picture as the last. The Rover makes a selfie not when he wants, but only during stops for drilling, and only this time it was possible to remove Kuriositi from the level of the bottom of the apparatus - all the previous selfies looked as if the Mars -Road was holding the camera in his hand over himself. This turned out due to the fact that Kuriositi stopped on a hill, and the automatic hand with the camera could go down quite low. An incredible view of Mars was opened from a hill, and while the Rover Busil, the Pilots of the Marshod took pictures. After gluing the photos, a panorama turned out, in the center of which is Kuriositi himself.