NASAs Curiosity Mars rover got a bit of help from the European Space Agency (ESA) in October. Beaming data back to Earth from the surface of the Red Planet is often tricky, and Curiosity regularly uses satellites to act as relays when a proper line of sight isn't available. On October 6, the ESA probe Mars Express took up the slack by relaying data and images for the rover as part of an ESA-NASA support agreement.

Mars Express received 15 minutes worth of scientific data from Curiosity and then beamed it to ESAs 35-meter antenna in New Norcia, Australia, which relayed it to the the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. From there it was made immediately available to NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The data included a pair of images of the rock designated Rocknest 3. These were before and after images of the rock specimen being hit by Curiositys laser.

Image relayed by Mars Express of Rocknest 3 before being struck by ChemCams laser (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP)

The quality of these images from ChemCam is outstanding, and the mosaic image of the spectrometer analyses has been essential for scientific interpretation of the data, said Sylvestre Maurice, Deputy Principal Investigator for ChemCam at Frances Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology. This combination of imaging and analysis has demonstrated its potential for future missions.

Most of Curiositys data is relayed by NASA's own satellites around Mars, but Mars Express acts as a backup relay in the event that the others arent available, as when it monitored Curiositys landing on August 6. It also acts as a relay for NASAs Opportunity rover.

Rocknest 3 indicating five spots where it was hit with the laser (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP)

Another area where NASAs Mars rovers gets a bit of orbital help is where the weather is concerned. On November 10, Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Systems was using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters Mars Color Imager, when he noticed a large dust storm developing in Mars southern hemisphere. By November 16, Orbiter was detecting a rise in temperature in the area of 45F (25C), which was a sign that dust was rising in the atmosphere.

However, this was more than just an interesting bit of meteorology. Martian dust storms are the largest in the Solar System, and under the right conditions can grow into global super storms engulfing the entire planet in dust. If that had happened, the nuclear-powered Curiosity wouldn't have suffered worse than having to close the dust covers over its lenses however, Opportunity (which is solar powered) ran the risk of having its panels covered in dust, which might result in it being unable to charge its batteries.

Image relayed by Mars Express of Rocknest 3 after being struck by ChemCams laser (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP)

Fortunately, the storm didn't develop beyond a regional area and never came closer to Opportunity than about 837 miles (1,347 km). The rover detected a slight drop in clarity, but that was all. Meanwhile, Curiosity, which has a Spanish-built weather station aboard, detected a slight drop in pressure and overnight temperatures due to the storm. This data provided a valuable comparison to Orbiter's observations.

See the rest here:

ESA's Mars Express relays Curiosity data