Talking
Points Memo: The Mars rover Curiosity, which launched 26
November aboard NASA’s
Mars Science Laboratory, has switched on one of its
instruments in flight. During Curiosity’s eight-month
trip, its radiation assessment detector (RAD) will monitor
high-energy atomic and subatomic particles from the Sun,
distant supernovas, and other sources. The rover also will
monitor radiation on the surface of Mars after its August 2012
landing. One of 10 precision instruments on board, “RAD
is serving as a proxy for an astronaut inside a spacecraft on
the way to Mars,” according to a NASA news release from
RAD’s principal investigator Don Hassler, from the
Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “The
instrument is deep inside the spacecraft, the way an astronaut
would be. Understanding the effects of the spacecraft on the
radiation field will be valuable in designing craft for
astronauts to travel to Mars.”
