Curiosity got down to reply the query: Did Mars ever have the appropriate environmental circumstances to assist small life varieties referred to as microbes? Early in its mission, Curiosity’s scientific instruments discovered chemical and mineral proof of previous liveable environments on Mars. It continues to discover the rock file from a time when Mars may have been residence to microbial life. Credit score: NASA
Regardless of indicators of damage, the intrepid spacecraft is about to begin an exhilarating new chapter of its mission because it climbs a Martian mountain.
Ten years in the past, on August 5, 2012, a jetpack lowered NASA’s Curiosity rover onto the Pink Planet. This was the start of the SUV-size explorer’s pursuit of proof that Mars had the circumstances wanted to assist microscopic life billions of years in the past.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover got down to reply a giant query when it landed on the Pink Planet 10 years in the past: May Mars have supported historic life? Scientists have found the reply is sure and have been working to study extra in regards to the planet’s previous liveable atmosphere. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/JHU-APL
Over the previous 10 years, Curiosity has pushed almost 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascended 2,050 toes (625 meters) because it explores Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp inside it. The Mars rover has analyzed 41 rock and soil samples, counting on a set of science devices to study what they reveal about Earth’s rocky sibling. It’s success has pushed a workforce of engineers to plan methods to attenuate put on and tear and preserve the rover rolling. In truth, Curiosity’s mission was not too long ago prolonged for one more three years, permitting it to proceed amongst NASA’s fleet of vital astrobiological missions.
Keep curious with NASA and have fun the company’s Curiosity Mars rover’s tenth anniversary on the Pink Planet with a two-sided poster that lists a number of the intrepid explorer’s inspiring accomplishments. Obtain it totally free right here. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A Bounty of Science
It’s been a busy decade for Curiosity. The roving explorer has studied the Pink Planet’s skies, capturing photos of shining clouds and drifting moons. It radiation sensor helps NASA determine easy methods to preserve future astronauts secure by measuring the quantity of high-energy radiation they might be uncovered to on the Martian floor.
However most importantly, Curiosity has discovered that liquid water, in addition to the chemical constructing blocks and vitamins wanted for supporting life, had been current for no less than tens of tens of millions of years in Gale Crater. The crater as soon as held a lake, the dimensions of which waxed and waned over time. Which means that every layer larger up on Mount Sharp serves as a file of a more moderen period of Mars’ atmosphere.
Now, the intrepid rover is driving by means of a canyon that marks the transition to a brand new area, one thought to have shaped as water was drying out, forsaking salty minerals referred to as sulfates.
“We’re seeing proof of dramatic adjustments within the historic Martian local weather,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s venture scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “The query now's whether or not the liveable circumstances that Curiosity has discovered to this point endured by means of these adjustments. Did they disappear, by no means to return, or did they arrive and go over tens of millions of years?”
Curiosity has made placing progress up the mountain. Again in 2015, the workforce captured a “postcard” picture (see beneath) of distant buttes. A mere speck inside that picture is a Curiosity-size boulder nicknamed “Ilha Novo Destino” – and, almost seven years later, the rover trundled by it final month on the best way to the sulfate-bearing area.
The Curiosity workforce plans to spend the subsequent few years exploring the sulfate-rich space. Inside it, they've targets in thoughts just like the Gediz Vallis channel, which can have shaped throughout a flood late in Mount Sharp’s historical past, and giant cemented fractures that present the results of groundwater larger up the mountain.
This scene was captured by Curiosity on September 9, 2015, when NASA’s Mars rover was many miles from its present location. The circle signifies the placement of a Curiosity-size boulder that the rover not too long ago drove previous. To the left of that's “Paraitepuy Cross,” which Curiosity is now touring by means of. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Easy methods to Maintain a Rover on a Roll
What’s Curiosity’s secret to sustaining an energetic way of life on the ripe outdated age of 10? A workforce of tons of of devoted engineers, after all, working each in particular person at JPL and remotely from residence.
They catalog every crack within the wheels, check each line of pc code earlier than it’s beamed into house, and drill into infinite rock samples in JPL’s Mars Yard, making certain Curiosity can safely do the identical.
“As quickly as you land on Mars, all the things you do is predicated on the truth that there’s nobody round to restore it for 100 million miles,” stated Andy Mishkin, Curiosity’s performing venture supervisor at JPL. “It’s all about making clever use of what’s already in your rover.”
For instance, Curiosity’s robotic drilling course of has been reinvented a number of instances since touchdown. At one level, the drill was offline for greater than a 12 months as engineers redesigned its use to be extra like a handheld drill. Extra not too long ago, a set of braking mechanisms that permit the robotic arm to maneuver or keep in place stopped working. Though the arm has been working as standard since engineers engaged a set of spares, the workforce has additionally discovered to drill extra gently to protect the brand new brakes.
To reduce harm to the wheels, engineers preserve an eye fixed out for treacherous spots just like the knife-edged “gator-back” terrain they found not too long ago. They developed a traction-control algorithm to assist as properly.
The workforce has taken an analogous method to managing the rover’s slowly diminishing energy. Curiosity depends on a long-lived nuclear-powered battery relatively than photo voltaic panels to maintain on rolling. Because the plutonium pellets within the battery decay, they generate warmth that the rover converts into energy. Due to the pellets’ gradual decay, the rover can’t do fairly as a lot in a day because it did throughout its first 12 months.
Mishkin stated the workforce is constant to finances how a lot vitality the rover makes use of every day, and has discovered which actions may be achieved in parallel to optimize the vitality accessible to the rover. “Curiosity is unquestionably doing extra multitasking the place it’s secure to take action,” Mishkin added.
By means of cautious planning and engineering hacks, the workforce has each expectation the plucky rover nonetheless has years of exploring forward of it.
Extra In regards to the Mission
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, constructed Curiosity for NASA and leads the mission on behalf of the company’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
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