Mass 900 kg (2,000 lb)[

Power Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)

the general public had an opportunity to rank nine finalist names through a public poll on the NASA website

Curiosity was selected, which was submitted by a sixth-grader, Clara Ma, from Kansas in an essay contest

10 ft (3.0 m) in length

radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), as used by the successful Mars landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976

Radioisotope power systems are generators that produce electricity from the natural decay of plutonium-238, which is a non-fissile isotope of plutonium used in power systems for NASA spacecraft. Heat given off by the natural decay of this isotope is converted into electricity, providing constant power during all seasons and through the day and night, and waste heat can be used via pipes to warm systems, freeing electrical power for the operation of the vehicle and instruments

designed to produce 125 watts of electrical power from about 2000 watts of thermal power at the start of the mission

lifetime of 14 years, electrical power output is down to 100 watts

"Rover Compute Element" (RCE), contain radiation hardened memory to tolerate the extreme radiation environment from space and to safeguard against power-off cycles

256 kB of EEPROM, 256 MB of DRAM, and 2 GB of flash memory

In active mode, it is sensitive enough to detect water content as low as one-tenth of one percent in the ground beneath the rover.

With pulses lasting about one microsecond and repeated as frequently as 10 times per second

The generator will be able to emit a total of about 10 million pulses during the mission, with about 10 million neutrons at each pulse.

DAN can tell us how the shallow subsurface may differ from what the rover sees at the surface. None of our other instruments have the ability to do this

will provide the ability to detect hydrated minerals or water ice in the shallow subsurface

will also provide a ground-truth calibration for the measurements that the gamma-ray and neutron detectors on Odyssey have made and continue to make

enhancing the value of that global data set

Curiosity’s purpose is to search for evidence of habitats that could ever have supported microbial life on Mars

determine whether the ingredients of life exist on Mars today in the form of organic molecules

The nuclear power source will significantly enhance the driving range, scientific capability and working lifetime of the six wheeled rover compared to other solar powered landed surface explorers

The science payload weighs ten times more than any prior Mars rover mission.

the probe “Corrects her orbit” every now and then.

Does this mean that the probe knows where she is? Probably not.

If Grunt’s safe mode includes a program that fires thrusters every so often to keep the craft from entering the atmosphere in the event of a malfunction just after reaching low Earth orbit

continues to occur, we can expect that the predicted date of atmospheric entry will be moved back again, just as it was moved from late December/early November to mid-January after the first orbital correction episode

it could buy more time for controllers to establish communication –although Roscosmos has stated that December is the limit for correcting the problem