video transcript

NO REPORTER NARRATION - ROUGH CUT STORY: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took a 16-minute drive on Wednesday (August 22), its first since reaching the Red Planet to search for habitats that could have supported microbial life. At 10:17 a.m. EDT (1417 gmt), Curiosity became a rover, trudging out a total of 15 feet (4.5 meters), turning 120 degrees and then backing up 8 feet (2.5 meters) to position itself beside its first science target -- a scour mark left behind by the rover's descent engine. Most of Curiosity's drive time was spent taking pictures, including the first images of the rover's tread marks in the Martian soil. Scientists displayed a photo of the event and animation in a press conference in Pasadena, California. "So I'm pleased to report that Curiosity today had her first successful drive on Mars," NASA scientist Michael Heverley said, initiating applause among those in the audience at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, displaying an image of the Rover with visible tracks on the surface of Mars. Heverley said Rover had a "fully functioning mobility system," allowing the Rover to move over the soil of the Red planet. Heverley then showed an animation of Curiosity's first drive. He said it ended in a place where it could now provide "good science." Curiosity is due to make a longer drive in about a week to a place where three different types of terrain come together.