At the Economist, Glenn Fleishmann writes about the 17 cameras on board the Curiosity rover on Mars. That's "seven more than any previous exploratory vehicle," he writes. They "store images in a raw, unprocessed format and initially beam back tiny thumbnails (which NASA uploads as they come in). The scientists working on different aspects of the mission meet daily to determine which of the thumbnails to download in higher resolution. The 'health and safety' of the rover takes priority. After the deliberations, which can last over an hour, instructions are dispatched to Mars."

  • nowimnothing

    Wow, 2MP cameras with 8GB memory cards. But even more amazing, it can only send back 30MB per Sol. Seems like we should be able to get some better bandwidth than that. Maybe with uplinks to the orbiting craft?

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      I say get a load of repeaters in space and get the rover onto a local network.

      Or is that a bit optimistic?

      • SoItBegins

         Careful. Do that and it’ll want to start playing Angry Birds.

        • Roberto Martinez

           Hey! good idea…Angry Birds in Space…. hum… maybe I should patent it….damn! too late!

    • brainflakes

      It does uplink with the orbiting craft, but they only have so much bandwidth themselves.