Talk:Curiosity (rover)

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A news item involving Curiosity (rover) was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 6 August 2012.

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Will it drive all the way to the summit of Mt. Sharp?[edit]

On this Reddit page, there's speculation that the mission directors have no plans to drive Curiosity all the way to the summit of Mt. Sharp.

Has there been any official word from NASA about this question? Would it even be possible to drive to the summit, or does the terrain forbid that? It would be nice if the article included some information about the rover's planned future driving route. 75.163.180.231 (talk) 15:02, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I made suggestions about how to improve the article; namely, that the article would be improved if it

provided information about Curiosity's future driving route
addressed the question of whether the rover will drive all the way to the summit of Mt. Sharp
addressed the question of whether the local terrain would even permit such a thing.

FlightTime Phone felt that I violated WP:NOTFORUM. Let's see...

Don't put Primary (original) research into the article. No, I didn't do that.
Don't create an article about Personal inventions. Nope, not guilty of that.
Don't state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the opinions of experts). Didn't do that; to the contrary, I expressed a desire that information provided by experts (NASA officials) be added to the article.
Talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles. Yes, that was what I proposed; suggestions about how to improve the article.

If FlightTime Phone thinks my suggestions are not very good, I'd be happy to discuss that. But deleting my suggestions and referring me to something irrelevant (WP:NOTFORUM) is not the solution. 75.163.180.231 (talk) 06:21, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Its mission was never to climb to the top, but to investigate the layers on the side of the mountain. Could it physically do it? Maybe: "We think the slopes are gentle enough that if you took an appropriately circuitous route, you could make it to the top of the mound," John Grotzinger of Caltech, project scientist for Curiosity's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, told reporters yesterday. "But that's way into the future." [1]. Will it climb to the top? No. Especially now with damage to the wheels. Besides, it seems the top of the mountain is not as interesting as the lower and medium parts that exhibit sediments by lake water. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 16:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Rowan. That's exactly the kind of stuff I was interested in learning.
-- the IP formerly known as 75.163.180.231 2601:281:CC00:5FD:393B:8D73:8A07:88D4 (talk) 00:37, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes. Water on Mars to the rescue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.169 (talk) 18:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Self portraits[edit]

I'm interested in how the self portraits were taken. I can't see any arms/booms reaching out to the edge of the image that could hold the camera. Stepho talk 21:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The robotic arm has a wide-angle camera. Each published selfie is actually a composite made from several pictures. They chose to not show the arm. Rowan Forest (talk) 00:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, that explains a lot. It also explains why the MAHLI camera and half of its arm is missing from the photo but still reflected in the mast camera lense. From your clues I was able to find this very detailed explanation http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/08191059-curiosity-self-portrait-history-belly-pan.html . Stepho talk 11:48, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What is the voltage of the power supply and batteries?[edit]

Although battery capacity is given in amp-hours, to understand the capacity for work we must also know the voltage. Harmony's Dave (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Dave sanatogan@gmail.com--Harmony's Dave (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]