Nasa jettisons 3D ‘Avatar’ cameras from Mars rover

James Cameron has become the latest victim of the fabled Curse of Mars, after his plan to install 3D cameras on Nasa's Curiosity rover, due to lift off for the red planet later this year, was dropped.

Cameron, the director of Avatar, which gave 3D cinema a new lease of life, persuaded Nasa several years ago to add a pair of zoom-lens cameras that would have given Curiosity the ability to shoot 3D video. The cameras would have utilised technology developed by Cameron's team especially for filming Avatar.

Cameron had been helping Malin Space Science Systems perfect the design for Curiosity's 'Mastcam'. If the project had worked out, audiences back on earth could have enjoyed spectacular 3D renderings of the Martian landscape.

Yet, just like the eye-wateringly expensive Avatar, which came to cinema screens a decade later than originally planned, Cameron's cameras took a long time to develop.

Unlike the makers of Avatar, Nasa pulled the plug on the experiment. A spokesman for the Mars Science Laboratory mission, of which Curiosity is a part, said that time had "become too short for the levels of testing that would be needed for [zoom cameras] to confidently replace the existing cameras".

Cameron said in a statement: "While Curiosity won't benefit from the 3D motion imaging that the zooms enable, I'm certain that this technology will play an important role in future missions. In the meantime, we're certainly going to make the most of our cameras that are working so well on Curiosity right now."

With the zoom cameras ruled out, the Mastcam will now consist of two old-fashioned - but tried and tested - fixed lens cameras. These will be more than adequate to achieve the objectives of the mission.

The $2.3bn Mars Science Laboratory mission is already hugely ambitious. It will involve the first ever precision landing on Mars – as opposed to previous uncontrolled descents.

The six-wheeled Curiosity rover will be able to travel over far more rugged terrain than any previous mission to Mars, hopefully avoiding embarrassing interludes such as the occasion in 2005 when Nasa's Opportunity rover got stuck in a Martian sand dune for over a month.  

Curiosity will carry a weather station - and a laser will enable it to determine the composition of any rock samples it zaps. The rover will land on Mars in August 2012 and the aim of its two-year mission is to examine whether conditions have been favourable for microbial life and to prepare for human exploration.

It is easy to understand why Nasa has ditched the 3D cameras. Scientists there are already well aware of the Curse of Mars – a phenomenon that has seen an incredibly low success rate of missions to the red planet, one which is barely more than 50 per cent. ·