This book is amazing. From the literal nuts-and-bolts that hold the Curiosity rover together, to the men and women who assembled and run it, this is the most comprehensive, yet accessible book I could imagine being written about the most complicated piece of hardware we've sent out of Earth orbit. This book is an amazing look at all, and I do mean all, of the parts and people that make this mission a continuing success. It's essentially an owner's manual for a spacecraft, yet it's somehow, strangely, a page-turner. Soaking up the minutiae of the twhack arms and getting an engineer's-eye view of the unforeseen degradation of the wheels that drive the rover across the most foreign of places we can drive something on is somehow both riveting and ponderous. I'm not quite sure how something that, on its face, is a technical, diagram-filled piece can remain utterly compelling, yet somehow this book manages that. Written in a no-nonsense, straightforward manner, reading this book takes one into the highest- and lowest-level planning sessions of some of the most important scientists running experiments off-world. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone who liked that scene in the movie Apollo 13 where they dump the stuff on the table and "figure it out" or who enjoyed "The Martian" to pick this one up and devour its depths. For anyone else interested in the science and engineering behind our most audacious space exploration, this is a must-read.

For some reason, I had the impression that the author was a lead engineer or engineer administrator on the mission at NASA until I just now read her background. I'm just a lowly, -and green machinist, and I could get the gist of most of what the author talked about. It is an absolutely beautiful book that leaves none of my questions unanswered (except one very minor one). I can only compare it to Aaron Franklin's book about barbecue -not only is it unexpected that one would be able to see a bit behind the scenes of such excellence-but you are also able to see every nut and bolt; and the struggle, success, and failure etc.

If there is a second printing, I could only suggest a "vital facts" page at the very beginning or end such as weight on earth/mars, range per charge, etc. -all was covered in the book. It would just be nice to thumb straight to it. The only question I had that was unanswered was more of a matter of syntax, and I can't quite remember the details. I remember it had to do with the amount of power that was supplied to one side or the other, and it was really insignificant.

Its an amazing book, and more than I ever expected from such an incredible engineering marvel -explained in excellent photography and description. I think I thought the author was one of the Curiosity's engineers because the book seems like a true labor of love.

Magnificent!

This is a fact-packed but very readable overview of the most sophisticated robotic mission flown to Mars. The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla lays out in accessible detail (backed by abundant references) the evolution of the Mars Science Laboratory, the crises during its development, and how its various systems and instruments work. By drawing together in one place both the nuts and bolts, and the scientific intent, of rover operations, the book takes the reader to the red planet with explanations of everything from heat shields to image compression and chemical analysis. Especially illuminating are the discussions of issues that operators have had to work around.

The book has ~200 images, carefully chosen and composed (as one might expect from Emily, a well-known image-processing maven). Particularly useful are the annotations she has added to many images to label various details. Also tremendously useful are the many tables listing such details as when different kinds of images were taken, or when short-circuits occurred, etc.

If I were to have any criticism of the book, it is that the index is a little anemic. However, as a designer of mobile robotic planetary missions myself, I doubt this deficiency will be grievous, as I'll probably get to know where everything is just by regular consultation. This book has instantly become my indispensable guide to Curiosity.

Ralph Lorenz – Author, Cassini-Huygens Owners Workshop Manual

As an engineer working on projects for the Mars Science Laboratory and the upcoming Mars 2020 mission at JPL, I'm pretty picky when it comes to technical details, and I dislike it when books or articles gloss over points of engineering because they might be difficult to explain to the average reader. But Emily Lakdawalla hit this out of the park. She not only goes into more technical detail than I've seen anywhere else, but also explains everything within a fascinating narrative which stays interesting and accessible throughout.

I highly recommend this book, especially for engineers, scientists, and enthusiasts of space and technology who enjoy a good read about a pretty amazing rover.

Lots of good technical detail, especially about the science packages. Somewhat less detail about the mechanical, brains and power systems. Occasionally skips over some introductory info that would make later parts clearer, and definitely targeted at readers with strong a STEM background. Does a good job of avoiding getting swamped in jargon, acronyms and abbreviations.

I'd like to have read more detail about the engineering story behind it -- how the engineers worked around and solved problems

/ challenges before and after launch. What they might do differently for the next rover? There's a little bit of that, but I was left wanting more. Hopefully more will be in the follow up book?

Good color photos and illustrations. I definitely feel I have a good understanding of what the rover does and is capable of after reading this.

With the recent news that Curiosity has discovered some form of organic compound on Mars, it's inevitable that people are going to be asking just how it would have gone about doing so. There's going to be plenty of misinformation, uneducated speculation, and downright wrong explanations of how the rover works. Thankfully, there's a book for that.

This is actually the first part of a two-volume set - a companion volume, focusing mainly on mission science, is due out next year. Even if it's only "half" a book, this is still a substantial reference work. The first chapter covers the evolution of Curiosity and the rocky road, full of budget cuts, "descopes," and launch delays that it faced in the decade prior to launch. The second chapter looks at the journey to Mars, focusing on the notoriously complex Entry, Descent, and Landing phase. The third chapter describes surface operations, including planning processes and a summary of the mission so far, while the fourth chapter covers power systems, thermal control, avionics, etc. The final four chapters, roughly half the book, describes all of the scientific, chemistry, and geological instruments, explaining the engineering design of each, how they work, some of the results obtained so far, and some of the problems they've encountered. The text is accompanied by a large number of color photographs and diagrams, annotated images of rover hardware, graphs, and summary tables.

Where this book really delivers is in a superbly detailed presentation on exactly WHY MSL, for all its great cost, is such a unique, powerful, and versatile vehicle for scientific and geological studies. This isn't the kind of book that tells us how many millimeters in diameter the drill is, or what type of metal the bits are made of. Instead, Emily Lakdawalla explains how the drill is actually used, its internal arrangement, some of the anomalies encountered on Mars, and how a bit could be changed if need be. For a more complicated instrument, such as MAHLI, she describes how the camera is focused, the different imaging modes, and the use of the calibration target. The hard details, such as camera specifications, image scales, motor counts, and the dates mosaics were taken, are all included as side tables. The appendix is an extremely useful summary of the first 1,648 sols, providing information on scientific activities, drive distances, arm usage, surface temperature and pressure, and so on.

I really want to give this five stars, but some publisher issues unfortunately mar it. Although Springer/Praxis has published a huge number of excellent space titles, they've always lacked somewhat in production values. The photo quality is merely decent; most of the pictures look fine, if a little soft, but quite a few are very murky or have poor contrast. The index is very skimpy, so be prepared to spend a lot of time browsing if you want to find a particular piece of data. There's also no glossary, which considering the huge number of acronyms is a frustrating omission. That aside, this an excellent book which deserves to be read by anyone who has a serious interest in the inner workings of MSL.

Excellent book for anyone having more that a passing interest in the Curiosity Rover. I expected this book to be a complete and detailed reference book on Curiosity. It certainly exceeded those expectations. What I wasn't planning on, and what really surprised me, is what a tremendously readable book this turned out to be! Most engineering texts are jam packed with facts and drawings. Regardless of how interested the reader is in the subject matter, they seldom can be considered a, "page turner". Emily Lakdawalla managed to allow both her knowledge and passion for Curiosity to transfer to the written page. Not only did I learn a lot, I also enjoyed the read. Well done!

The Curiosity rover is humanity's most advanced messenger to Mars yet - it's an incredible achievement and a very complex mission, yet Emily Lakdawalla has managed to make its adventure accessible and yet provide the wealth of detail that space nerds like myself are looking for. This is the definitive treatment of the mission for lay public and professional solar system explorers alike. It takes you through the rocky development of Curiosity, the thrilling flight to Mars, and then lays out piece by piece the various widgets and science instruments that make Curiosity so remarkable, with detailed diagrams and quantitative background info.

Was impatient like a little kid today, couldn’t wait to finally hold this book in my hands. And boy, was I overwhelmed! The book is just simply beautiful and fantastic!!! Every bit you wanna know about Curiosity is described in detail together with great pictures, plans and diagrams... I’ve never seen anything like this! This book is a must-have for space exploration fans!

I'm a physics' student and I have got a passion for the exploration of planets. I bought this book to understand how a rover is made and how it works. I'm very happy, because this book explains complicate concepts in a very simple way. For this reason I suggest to everyone who would like to understand how exploration of planet and satellites is done to buy this book. Expecially this book could be usefoul for engineers, physicists and geologists.

A real insight into the Curiosity rover. Highly recommended

La verdad es que me ha sorprendido. Al principio, nada más ojearlo pensaba que iba a ser algo tedioso leer tanta información pero la verdad es que conocer los entresijos de semejante obra de ingeniería ha sido bastante ameno. Tanto la historia de cómo se creo el robot, todo el proceso del viaje y aterrizaje están contados de una manera muy detallada y un tanto amena. Luego tiene un compendio de cada uno de los sistemas e instrumentos científicos con una detallada explicación de su funcionamiento, composición, calibración, etc. Salvo algún sistema que se escapa a mi comprensión y cuyo funcionamiento es un tanto laborioso y complejo, el resto son de fácil lectura y muy interesante. Además incluye múltiples fotografías, diagramas, esquemas y tablas de todos los sistemas. Un gran resumen por parte de Emily.

Very well written. Technical in all aspects. Enjoyable reading but serious.