Category: Other Worlds and Tech

It’s been a while since there have been any formal updates from the mission team responsible for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory. With the focus on preparing for the first set of drilling operations, this is understandable – although this is far from the only activity the Curiosity has been engaged in. “Routine” monitoring of the environment in Gale Crater and particularly around the “Yellowknife Bay” region continues, and the rover has been carrying out a number of other activities as well, including giving itself a once-over with camera systems to give engineers insight into its general condition after five months operation on Mars.

Does it Glow in the Dark?

Not long after my last mission update, Curiosity achieved another first – imaging surface features on Mars at night under white light and ultraviolet conditions. The images were captured using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), mounted on the rover’s turret at the end of the robot arm.

MAHLI is equipped with a series of light-emitting diodes which enable it to undertake imaging in low-lighting conditions and, in the case of the ultraviolet LEDs, to see if fluorescent minerals are present in rocks, which would reveal more about their chemical composition.

The tests were carried out on Sol 165 (January 22nd), when Curiosity deployed MAHLI after the local sun set to examine a target rock dubbed “Sayunei”. Prior to the image capture option, Curiosity was had been commanded to drive onto the rock and then “scuff” it with a wheel to remove surface dust and debris and provide a suitable area for testing, rather than using the wire brush also mounted on the rover’s turret. MAHLI was then tested against an ultraviolet test target on the “Lincoln Penny” calibration test panel mounted on the rover’s body before being positioned for the image capture process, which saw the target rock imaged under both the white light and the ultra-violet LEDs.

While the images returned by MAHLI showed very bright areas in the rock when under the ultraviolet lighting, NASA personnel cautioned against this being indicative of any fluorescent material being present in the rock. Discussing the images, MAHLI Principal Investigator Ken Edgett of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, said,  “The science team is still assessing the observations. If something looked green, yellow, orange or red under the ultraviolet illumination, that’d be a more clear-cut indicator of fluorescence.”

Pre-load Tests

Before drilling could commence, engineers on the mission team wanted to ensure the whether the amount of force applied to the hardware matches predictions for what would result from the commanded motions. This involved positioning the robot arm with the drill bit oriented as if for an actual drilling operation and bringing it into contact with a rock surface. One of four locations identified as the possible initial drilling point in the rock dubbed “John Klein” was used for the test on Sol 170 (January 27th).

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Tuesday January 15th 2012 marked Sol 158 on Mars for Curiosity, and the first NASA / JPL telecon for 2013. As per my last report, the Mars Science Laboratory rover remains in “Yellowknife Bay”, which has revealed itself as a geological treasure trove. The net result of this is that Curiosity will be remaining in the area for a while to come, and that the first drilling operation which had been anticipated for this week has now been pushed back for perhaps two weeks while scientists use the time to carry out more extensive observations and examination of the wide variety of rock types in the region.

Referring the region, mission Principal Investigator John Grotzinger describes it as a “jackpot environment” for scientific exploration. A depressional area, “Yellowknife Bay” had already been identified as a possible location where free-flowing water many have been present. However, examination over the course of the last couple of weeks reveals that the entire area has been subject to very heavy aqueous activity, including the formation of rich mineral deposits.

While orbital surveys ahead of the mission showed the area to be a likely location for finding evidence of water action – it is very much an alluvial plain, after all – the MSL team have  nevertheless been surprised at the diversity of rock formations found, and the very strong evidence of what is called “mineral precipitation” – a process whereby minerals which formed elsewhere being carried to the region by strong water currents (estimated to be perhaps as high as a metre per second), before the current slows to a point where the minerals can no longer be held in suspension and so “precipitate out” as deposits on and in the rocks.

The ChemCam laser has been employed in the study of some of the mineral deposits within the rocks, revealing they contain Hydrated Calcium Sulfates. On Earth, calcium sulfates like gypsum form frequently in veins when relatively dilute fluid circulates at low to moderate temperatures – in other words, water must have once been circulating through the veins in the rocks in order for these minerals, thought to be gypsum or bassanite, to form.

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Curiosity spent the Christmas and New Year period parked in at “Grandma’s House”, a point of geological interest within the “Yellowknife Bay” area of Gale Crater.  With most of the mission team on Earth taking a break over the holiday period, the rover was left largely to its own devices for an 11-day period. This was not only to accommodate the holidays – which saw some NASA / JPL personnel available to step-in should problems be reported – but also to test the rover’s capabilities for upcoming times when it will be completely out-of-communication with Earth.

The times occur during what is known as periods of solar conjunction, which place Earth and Mars on opposite sides of the Sun. During these periods, which can last some two weeks, communications between Earth and vehicles operating on and around Mars are severely disrupted / curtailed due to interference from the Sun.

As a result, vehicles like Curiosity need to have sufficient instructions stored onboard so that they can continue to operate when it is impossible to upload commands on a daily basis, and to ensure their safety systems / processes are properly primed should anything untoward happen and the vehicle is forced to “safe” itself. The Christmas / New Year break was an ideal time for NASA / JPL to test Curiosity’s ability to operate in an effectively autonomous mode in preparation for the first such conjunction, which will occur in April 2013.

In all, two days were spent uploading 11 days’ worth of instructions and mission activities to the rover. These included instructions for Curiosity to record panoramic images of its surroundings and also images of potential targets of interest for the next phase of the mission. With “full” mission operations resuming on the 3rd January, 2013, mission project manager Richard Cook of JPL said of Curiosity’s first extended period of autonomous operation, “We had no surprises over the holidays,” before turning attention to the next immediate step in the mission: to commission the rover’s onboard drill.

Continue reading “Getting set for a drill down into history” →

It has continued to be a little quiet, news-wise where the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is concerned. As mentioned last time, this is hardly surprising, given the way the news cycle works.

Since my last report, Curiosity has started exploring the depression slight to east of Glenelg which has been given the name “Yellowknife Bay”. This is an area of one of three terrain types which come together within Glenelg itself (one of the other two being the terrain the rover has been traversing since its arrival on Mars at the start of August). It is very different in nature to the terrain found around the landing site at Bradbury Landing, and an initial approach to the area was halted on December 10th (Sol 123) when sensors on the rover reported conflicting angles of tilt to the main computer. While Curiosity was in no danger of toppling over, an on-board safety protocol was initiated which halted the rover’s planned drive while it ‘phoned home for advice.

Confident the rover was in no danger, mission managers instructed Curiosity to resume its drive on Sol 124, which saw it complete the planned traverse from the 10th December and pass over a 1/2-metre lip into the depression proper. On Sol 125 (December 12th) Curiosity covered a further 26.1 metres (86 ft), moving well into the depression, surveying a number of rocks along the way with both the Mastcam system and ChemCam in a series of remote sensing exercises.

A prime mission goal for Curiosity’s explorations of Yellowknife Bay is the identification of a suitable candidate for the first use of the percussive drill – the last major item of equipment on the rover’s robot arm turret to be commissioned. As such, the rock surveys were part of this work.

The drill will be used to collect samples from inside Martian rocks, something never before attempted on Mars. The powdered sample, once obtained, will be passed through the CHIMRA system which is also used to sieve and sort samples obtained by the soil scoop, before being passed to CheMin and SAM aboard the rover for detailed analysis.

On December 14th, Curiosity completed a drive of 32.8 metres (108 ft) to reach two “targets of interest” which mission planners dubbed “Costello” and “Flaherty”. Each of these rocks was subjected to study using the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, both mounted on the rover’s robot arm turret. These studies lasted a couple of days, during which Curiosity carried out various REMS monitoring activities as well; then on Sol 130 a further drive of just 5.6 metres (18 ft).

Continue reading “Christmas at grandma’s & preparing for when you can’t phone home” →