Mars Curiosity's Labs Are Back in Action
NASA's Curiosity rover is analyzing drilled samples on Mars in one of its onboard labs for the first time in more than a year.
NASA's Curiosity rover is analyzing drilled samples on
Mars in one of its onboard labs for the first time in more than a year."This was no small feat. It represents months and
months of work by our team to pull this off," said Jim Erickson, project
manager of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, which is led by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Curiosity rover is part of
the MSL mission. "JPL's engineers had to improvise a new way for the rover
to drill rocks on Mars after a mechanical problem took the drill offline in
December 2016."The rover drilled its last scheduled rock sample in
October 2016.On May 20, a technique called "feed extended drilling"
allowed Curiosity to drill its first rock sample since October 2016; on May 31,
an additional technique called "feed extended sample transfer"
successfully trickled rock powder into the rover for processing byits
mineralogy laboratory. Delivery to itschemistry
laboratorywill follow in the week ahead.Testing of both the new drilling method and sample
delivery will continue to be refined as Curiosity's engineers study their
results from Mars. But this is a major milestone for the mission, said Ashwin
Vasavada of JPL, the mission's project scientist."The science team was confident that the engineers
would deliver -- so confident that we drove back to a site that we missed
drilling before. The gambit paid off, and we now have a key sample we might
have never gotten," Vasavada said. "It's quite remarkable to have a
moment like this, five years into the mission. It means we can resume studying
Mount Sharp, which Curiosity is climbing, with our full range of scientific
tools."The new sample transfer technique allows Curiosity to
position its drill over two small inlets on top of the rover's deck, trickling
in the appropriate amount of rock powder for the onboard laboratories to do
their analyses.This delivery method had already been successfully tested
at JPL. But that's here on Earth; on Mars, the thin, dry atmosphere provides
very different conditions for powder falling out of the drill."On Mars we have to try and estimate visually whether
this is working, just by looking at images of how much powder falls out,"
said John Michael Moorokian of JPL, the engineer who led development of the new
sample delivery method. "We're talking about as little as half a baby
aspirin worth of sample."Too little powder, and the
laboratories can't provide accurate analyses. Too much, and it could overfill
the instruments, clogging parts or contaminating future measurements. A
successful test of the delivery method on May 22 led to even further
improvements in the delivery technique.Part of the challenge is that Curiosity's drill is now
permanently extended. That new configuration no longer gives it access to a
special device that sieves and portions drilled samples in precise amounts.
That device, called the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock
Analysis (CHIMRA), played an important role in delivering measured portions of
sample to the laboratories inside the rover.For more information about Curiosity, visit:https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/