New App Downlinks Mars Rover Images Straight to Your Smartphone

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 01.12.2012 at 7:30 pm 8 Comments

Opportunity at Endurance Crater NASA

Amid all the excitement about the new Mars rover, some people (not us) might forget there's a functional one up there already, still driving around craters and snapping new photos. So why not take advantage of it? A new app delivers Mars photos straight from the Opportunity rover's most recent downlink to your smartphone.

The Mars Images app, developed by Mark Powell at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, sends the most up-to-date images from Opportunity's downlink as soon as they're ready. You can also browse older Mars images from the rover's archive, and NASA is planning to add a photo album from Opportunity's late twin, Spirit. It's available for the iPhone and iPad as well as Android devices.

Opportunity is nestled in for the winter — its fifth cold season on Mars — at a spot called Greeley Haven, which faces south to provide ample solar energy. Meanwhile, the behemoth new rover Curiosity is making its way to Mars, adjusting its course this week on schedule for an August arrival. It will get its own version of the image-downlink app once it lands, according to Wired.

[iTunes / Android via Wired]

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8 Comments

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GMarsack

01/13/12 at 1:05 am

A neat little app. Certainly opens the imagination. Thanks for sharing!

---
In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.

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rlb2

01/13/12 at 4:42 am

My guess is it is a fast scripted program that they are talking about that downlinks the raw images, grayscale looking, from the JPL site posted on their site here:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity.html

I can't wait for Curiosity landing and more accurate true color images from Mars, you will be surprised by what is the true color of the Martian sky as viewed from its surface.

I had the pleasure of taking the raw images, RGB - Red, Green, Blue, filter images and combining them to make several thousand close approximate true color images from that site since Opportunity and Spirit rover landed. I'm sure that app will not make color images but may provide NASA color images that NASA/JPL process from time to time. If it has the power of making color images automatically that is down linked from Opportunity out of the available RGB images, now that would be a great app.

See some of my work here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Ron Bennett

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rlb2

01/13/12 at 4:46 am

or here

https://picasaweb.google.com/104144022457768434822/MarsEndeavourCraterNew#

Ron Bennett

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Robot

01/13/12 at 9:05 am

From one Robot to another.

0100100100100000011011000110111101110110011001
0100100000011110010110111101110101001000000100
1111011100000111000001101111011100100111010001
11010101101110011010010111010001111001

Amor...... happy sigh...

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

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Angelle

01/13/12 at 10:31 am

010011010110010100100000011101000110111101101111001011000010000001001111011100000111000001101111011100100111010001110101011011100110100101110100011110010010000000100001 !!!!

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looiewu

01/13/12 at 8:03 pm

You guys had better watch your language. Some of us read binary. Uppity AIs anyway.

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Amun-Ra

01/13/12 at 10:39 pm

looiewu,
Allow me to assist you. First do a google search for "binary to text". Then when you find the correct website enter you words. Be prepared if you write something long in text, your binary will be exceptionally long. Or in other words, keep you text short.

Second, once you achieved you binary, copy it into notepad and put in 'enter' keys to make it in a nice block form. Point being it will end up looking like Robots as you copy and past it into POPSCI. If you do not do this, it will end up looking like Angelle and hard to read.

Finally on a last note; POPSCI does not like when people do this; simply because the majority of people do not know how to read it and it close to being like a troll\annoying.

And now you know.

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Robot

01/16/12 at 9:42 am

I wish I was on Mars...heavy sigh....

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

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