#hazcam

|fovarosiblogsaid:What is hazcam?

Ah, sorry, that’s short for “hazard camera”. These are wide angle cameras the rover uses while driving, to help avoid driving into boulders, falling off cliffs, getting stuck in sand, etc. Perseverance has three stereo pairs of these: Main and backup pairs on the front end of the rover, and a single pair on the back end. As another example of this, you can look at all the latest hazcam images from the Curiosity rover here.

They use these cameras right after landing because most of the others are located on the rover’s camera mast – the thing that kind of looks like the rover’s head and neck – or its arm, and it’ll be a couple of days before they start using either of those.