Why Does the $2.5 Billion Curiosity Use a 2-Megapixel Camera?

Because the 36.3 megapixel Nikon D800 has a left autofocus problem.

2 mp is fine because you can take successive pictures at slightly different angles and then stitch them together to make larger and more detailed panoramas.

Additionally, you can take shots at different focus points, layer them together, and increase the depth of field.

You can also do the same with different exposure times and layer those together to get HDR (High Dynamic Range), which dramatically increases the camera's dynamic range.

JPL's main concern is bandwidth. Curiosity and its signal chain have an aggregate bandwidth 32 MiB/day, max. That's not much and it has to support four 2-MP KA-2020 image sensors, other, lower-rez image sensors (collision-avoidance, navigation, etc), and all the data sent by the Science Package which has priority. Putting it another way, it would take Curiosity all day to send six to eight MP3s.

That's almost faster than my current Internet service.

For fun, contrast Curiosity's aggregate bandwidth to YouTube's: YouTube gets four billion visitors per day on average (Jan, 2012 stats). Not only, but YouTube's members upload about 2.5 days worth of video per minute, worldwide. That's about 86,400 hours of video uploaded per day, or roughly one hour of video per second, 24/7/365.

Your typical 720p HD video (1280x720 pixels x 30 fps) consumes about 32 MiB per minute, depending (I've uploaded a few myself). Curiosity could send a 720p HD video at a rate of about one minute of video per day IF she and the Orbiter had nothing else to send meanwhile. Curiosity isn't the only one in the signal chain sending pictures, however. The Orbiter also has one of these 2 MP image sensors and very likely takes more pix than Curiosity does, mainly for surface-mapping, identifying suitable landing sites for Orion, that sort of thing.

You can see why JPL didn't opt for the D-800. They're still waiting on Time-Warner's tech to show up with that new fibre.

Curiosity and its signal chain have an aggregate bandwidth 32 MiB/day, max. That's not much ..........

There still is a compression problem on video does anyone know the reason for this?

"..compression problem on video.."

What compression problem on video? The MARDI images are highly compressed prior to transmission. Not just the images, but other data as well. Lossless compression in the case of data and critical imagery, variable-loss compression for non-critical imagery.

Thanks,

This area I am very weak at and I should have stated it clearer, Is there a compression problem?

There is not, AFAIK. Possibly you're looking at that 360 panorama and wondering why the bulk of the image is blurred? (if so, the blurry parts are 'quick-and-dirty' 64x64-pixel thumbnails to give JPL as quick an assessment of the craft's integrity and orientation as possible, right after touchdown).

That stitched together 'video' is great.
I love the typo 'bleeding edge' for 'leading edge'... I've worked on a few bleedin' edge projects
Del

<splarf> Nicely spotted . It's more fun than a fairground ride to spin around that panorama. The tracks are fantastic - it looks like it had eight pints of ale and a dodgy kebab before setting up position.

Anybody know how it decides where to go ? The thing can't be driven purely by some dude at a consol.

"The thing can't be driven purely by some dude at a console."

It's not. It's driven by a committee. To wit:

"... it looks like it had eight pints of ale and a dodgy kebab before setting up position."

amazed about the 2.5billion figure! but to be honest it is as curious to me as to all the rest! what does the committee say?

$2.5 billion? Nah. That's not much. It'll buy you only six F-22 Raptors. Are we getting our money's worth? Probably not, given that Curiosity can't kill anything - except possibly the purchase of six F-22 Raptors...

You can't say we're not making progress.

...and cats.

Not many Raptors, but a lot of lunar landers to play with.

Did you see that little blurb down and to the left?

"NASA calls failed tests 'part of the development process'"

Oh? The 'successful' ones aren't? And what is a 'failed test' exactly? Don't all tests invariably succeed in telling the tester something? Isn't that what tests are supposed to do?

Maybe they're confusing 'test' with 'demo'. Ya gotta love these NASA PR people.

I was intrigues by what The Voice of Russia had to say - An explosion occurred after fragments of the lander burst into flames. That doesn't quite read right. I'd have though the fuel was on fire/exploding.

Lost in the translation?

I like the name Morpheus.

"Do you think those are real flames you're seeing? ...... hmm"

not a bad thing or choice for just a camera with such a poor resolution! but, some good oldies can make quite a roar! You know for sure that the computer´s a board the space shuttles and the other mission´s were primitive and still, look what they manage to do with they! and now you could ask... What to do with a hard drive of 1TBite? I think that in my entire life I would not fill it (with data produced by me)!

Try making videos and you'll find it's cheaper to buy 1 TB drives by the case.

It said it was only going out for a couple - we didn't know it'd blow that much ! Still, at least it called home and managed to get pictures (even if it got stopped for a sample). Probably saying 'yerz me besterst mate' to a rock at this very moment .

So it found the Mars Bar then?

"Never underestimate the Dark Side of the Force."

Say, isn't that the Aurora cinema shooter Holmes in that pic?

That, my friends, is one sick MFer!

You mean The Joker, Heath Ledger? Ledger was perfect for his role in The Dark Kniggit. Too bad he bought the farm. His is going to be a hard act to follow, that's for sure.

"Aurora cinema shootings..." Not many years ago they had the Columbine shootings. Columbine (to the south of Denver) isn't all that far from Aurora (to the east of Denver). Both are in the greater Denver metro area. Maybe it's the altitude, I dunno. Elevated levels UV and cosmic rays, maybe. Who knows? Pretty sad, regardless.

$2.5 Billion is not really all that much if you factor it out as a per capita cost for each person of the US population.

As far as I am concerned its one of the better things that $7.41 of my tax dollars that got spent on.

Heck for that price sign me up for about 3000 more of them for this years taxes I will be paying in or better yet put it toward NASA getting a DSL line instead of a dial up connection for our space toys.

There's about 20,000 m2 for everyone on Earth. I'll send NASA 36 cents* if they will have it mark out a plot for me .

These calculations may be wrong by several orders of magnitude !

I think I would rather see that $$$$ go towards the purchase of those 6 F-22A Raptors rather than seeing pics of Marvin the Martian over and over again....

Have you ever seen an F-22 Raptor up close? They're plastered with those little Marvin-the-Martian appliques. Everywhere. Go try to switch on the TFR. There's Marvin. Try to arm the Sidewinders, there's Marvin. Turn on the ECM pod. There's Marvin. Look out the canopy. There's Marvin. You can't! Jack in your G-suit to that fitting on the side console. There's Marvin. Marvins. Countless Marvins everywhere. Bloody MtM icons peeking at you from the HUD, dotting your Nav and Radar displays. Why do you think those Raptors cost $143 million? Hammers and Toilet Seats? Yes. And Marvins. On the Hammers and Toilet Seats. Let's hope the Pentagon never hosts the Olympics.

You are not supposed to talk about that.

Loose lips sink ships.

Which part? Every reference is over 40 years old and public knowledge. Jane's.

Unfortunately, I've never seen a F-22A Raptor in real life. Maybe one will show up at an airshow nearby one of these days!

Thanks for the M-T-M warning! LOL Do you think we have a Martian invasion going on here? They've infiltrated the Puzzle Palace, that's for sure!

What is the baud rate of data transmission over that distance?

Around 3000 bits per second on average. Due to the nature of the encoding, the effective symbol rate (ie, the 'baud rate') is usually higher.