The Mars Curiosity Rover is the most sophisticated mobile laboratory ever deployed on a planet. For over seven years, scores of investigators have planned its daily route and activities, poring over the overwhelming images and data and revising our understanding of planetary surfaces, geology, and potential habitability.
This book takes readers right down to the surface of Mars, chronicling Curiosity’s physical and scientific journey across the planet’s Earth-like, yet strikingly alien vistas. Through dozens of images and descriptive accounts of the surface, you will gain a deeper knowledge of the Martian landscape, from the floor of Gale Crater up to the cliffs of Mount Sharp. Presented at the end of each chapter are the results and revelations from the science team spearheading the mission.
Like any cross-country road trip, the rover has hit some unexpected hitches along the way. The book describes the obstacles faced by the rover and its scientists over the years and the difficult decisions and careful experimentation it took to solve them.
Charles J. Byrne was educated as an electrical engineer at RPI (BS) and Caltech (MS). He interned with General Electric and RCA and then joined Bell Telephone Labs in Maurice Karnaugh’s Mathematics Research Department. Later, Byrne was recruited to join Bellcomm, a system engineering firm AT&T formed to support NASA headquarters for the Apollo Project. There, he was responsible for the gathering of information to support the selection and certification of landing sites on the Moon. Much of his work there was on remote sensing of the lunar surface with Lunar Obiter, which used photographic film in lunar orbit, scanned, and transmitted the images to Earth by analog communication.
Returning to Bell Labs and other AT&T subsidiaries, he worked on developing operation systems for communications networks and related national and international standards. After retirement, he developed software to process the images from Lunar Orbiter to remove the artifacts due to analog processing in orbit. This resulted in several books on the Moon, including one based on images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, still in operation.
DJ Byrne, Charles’ and Mary’s son, received his BS from RPI and his MS from USC. His career has been at NASA’s JPL, run by Caltech, presently working on Mars 2020. He contributed the chapter on Mars 2020 and its Perseverance rover that is the next to advance the understanding of Mars.
