Does the Rover have some sort of Compass to tell the direction, moreover does the compass point to a Magnetic North on Mars?
Thank you for your very good question. The rover does not use a magnetic compass. The magnetic field of Mars is not strong enough to make this a viable approach. Instead, the rover uses a camera (in the mast on top of the rover) to find the sun. Given the location of the sun, time of day, etc, the rover uses software to compute its heading relative to true north. So its camera, acting as a sun sensor, serves as a compass (just not a magnetic one).
