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PIA16155: 'Jake Matijevic' Contact Target for Curiosity
The drive by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the mission's 43rd Martian day ended with this rock front of the rover. The rover team has assessed it as a suitable target for the first use of Curiosity's contact instruments on a rock.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) 
 Spacecraft:  Curiosity
 Instrument:  Navcam (MSL) 
 Product Size:  1024 x 1024 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA16155.tif (1.05 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA16155.jpg (254.6 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

The drive by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the mission's 43rd Martian day, or sol, (Sept. 19, 2012) ended with this rock about 8 feet (2.5 meters) in front of the rover. The rock is about 10 inches (25 centimeters) tall and 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. The rover team has assessed it as a suitable target for the first use of Curiosity's contact instruments on a rock. The image was taken by the left Navigation camera (Navcam) at the end of the drive.

The rock has been named "Jake Matijevic." This commemorates Jacob Matijevic (1947-2012), who was the surface operations systems chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the project's Curiosity rover. He was also a leading engineer for all of the previous NASA Mars rovers: Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity.

Curiosity's contact instruments are on a turret at the end of the rover's arm. They are the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer for reading a target's elemental composition and the Mars Hand Lens Imager for close-up imaging.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2012-09-19