Curiosity Operators Getting Ready To Roll

The large team of engineers and scientists living on Mars time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here are rapidly learning to operate the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover, which continues to perform almost faultlessly on the floor of Gale Crater. Checkout of the complex suite of instruments designed to gauge the habitability of Mars, past and perhaps present, continues to go well. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) engineering team has completed a changeout from the software designed to transport the rover from Earth to the surface of Mars over to the package Curiosity will need to operate semiautonomously for the next two Earth years ...