Triumphant arrival on Mars? Check. What's next for Curiosity?

Now that Curiosity, NASA's latest Mars rover, has landed, it will soon be heading out to explore the Martian surface -- and will depend on a series of cameras to do its work.

(Credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech)

After its triumphant touchdown on Mars last night, it would be tempting to think that NASA's Curiosity rover is a complete success.

But while the part of the mission involving sending the one-ton rover on its 352 million journey to Mars ended in worldwide celebration, the real work hasn't even gotten started.

Over the coming weeks and months, NASA scientists have to ensure that everything on Curiosity is in working order, and only then will the rover take its first "baby steps," let alone begin to explore the many square kilometers of Martian terrain it was designed to investigate. As NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's director Charles Elachi was said to have declared in the wake of Curiosity's landing last night, "We have a priceless asset on the surface of Mars, and we're going to take our time to make sure it works."

According to Tori Hoehler, research scientist in NASA's exobiology branch who is a member of the Mars Science Laboratory's CheMin instrument team, the earliest steps wil... [Read more]