Mars Exploration Rover Engineering Cameras

TLDR

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission will deploy 20 cameras, 14 of which are engineering cameras that support vehicle operation and provide valuable imagery for scientific studies of Martian rock and soil morphology. The engineering cameras include mast‑mounted Navcams (two per rover, 45° FOV, 0.82 mrad/pixel), body‑mounted Hazcams (four per rover, 124° FOV, 2.1 mrad/pixel), a lander‑mounted Descent camera (45° FOV, ~4 m/pixel), all using broadband visible filters and 1024 × 1024‑pixel detectors.

Abstract

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission will place a total of 20 cameras (10 per rover) onto the surface of Mars in early 2004. Fourteen of the 20 cameras are designated as engineering cameras and will support the operation of the vehicles on the Martian surface. Images returned from the engineering cameras will also be of significant importance to the scientific community for investigative studies of rock and soil morphology. The Navigation cameras (Navcams, two per rover) are a mast‐mounted stereo pair each with a 45° square field of view (FOV) and an angular resolution of 0.82 milliradians per pixel (mrad/pixel). The Hazard Avoidance cameras (Hazcams, four per rover) are a body‐mounted, front‐ and rear‐facing set of stereo pairs, each with a 124° square FOV and an angular resolution of 2.1 mrad/pixel. The Descent camera (one per rover), mounted to the lander, has a 45° square FOV and will return images with spatial resolutions of ∼4 m/pixel. All of the engineering cameras utilize broadband visible filters and 1024 × 1024 pixel detectors.