MRO HiRISE successfully photographed MSL Curiosity's descent

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The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured an impressive photograph of the Curiosity rover during its parachute descent, showcasing the remarkable synchronization between NASA's teams. The descent telemetry was relayed through the Odyssey orbiter while the MRO's HiRISE camera photographed Curiosity mid-flight. This event marks a continuation of MRO's achievements, as it previously photographed the Phoenix lander in a similar descent in 2008. The autonomous operation of both spacecraft highlights the advanced planning and execution involved in the mission. A recently released low-resolution video of Curiosity's landing provides a glimpse of the final moments before touchdown, with anticipation for a higher-resolution version to be available soon. The MRO also captured images of the heat shield during its descent, further documenting this historic landing.
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In another amazing photograph, the Mars Reconnaisance Oribiter (MRO) successfully utilized its fantastic HiRISE camera to take a picture of the Curiosity rover DURING PARACHUTE DESCENT.

The amount of perfect synchronization between teams during this landing is just staggering- Curisoity's descent telemetry signal was relayed through the Odysesy orbiter, and photographed MID FLIGHT by the MRO HiRISE camera.

BRAVO JPL/NASA!

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/08060824-hirise-curiosity-parachute.html

http://www.planetary.org/assets/images/ spacecraft /curiosity-hirise.png

Planetary.org said:
In 2008, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped an amazing photo of Phoenix descending to the surface of Mars under its parachute. Now it's repeated the feat, with Curiosity. I think this image pretty much speaks for itself. Absolutely stunning.

I want you to sit back and think about what was going on when this was taken. Both spacecraft were operating totally autonomously, based upon commands uplinked to them a long time before. (Some timing parameters were updated hours before.) This is a spaceship at Mars, and we have a photo of it in action, just minutes before its historic landing. Incredible.

And beautiful.
 
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I for one can't wait to see the images taken by the rover during final descent after the heat shield was jetissoned!
 
NASA released a low-res low framerate version of the "landing video" yesterday. It's a pretty amazing watch, especially the end with dust blowing and the wheel touching down. The video shows the last 2.5 minutes of the descent, starting with the heat shield falling away. Pretty fantasctic stuff, looking forward to the full-res video in a couple of weeks too.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=18895&media_id=149974611

Note the video is actually running at about 2.5x speed, due to the limited number of frames currently downloaded. The "real" video at 20 fps will be really nice...

Also a nice picture of the science "goal" mount sharp:
673885main_PIA15986-full_full.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html
 
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