Curiosity set out to answer the question: Did the Martian environment ever have the right environmental conditions to support tiny life forms called microbes? Early in its mission, Curiosity’s science instruments found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. He continues to examine the rock record of a time when Mars may have been home to microbial life. Credit: NASA
Despite signs of wear and tear, the intrepid spacecraft is about to begin an exciting new chapter of its mission as it climbs a Martian mountain.
Ten years ago, on August 5, 2012, a jetpack landed NASA’s Curiosity rover on the Red Planet. It was the start of the SUV-sized explorer’s pursuit of evidence that Mars had the conditions necessary to support microscopic life billions of years ago.
NASA’s Curiosity rover set out to answer a big question when it landed on the Red Planet 10 years ago: Could Mars have supported ancient life? Scientists have discovered that the answer is to work to learn more about the habitable environment of the planet in the past. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/JHU-APL
Over the past 10 years, Curiosity has traveled nearly 18 miles (29 kilometers) and climbed 2,050 feet (625 meters) as it explores Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp within it. The rover has analyzed 41 rock and soil samples, relying on an array of scientific instruments to learn what they reveal about Earth’s rocky sibling. Its success prompted a team of engineers to devise ways to minimize wear and tear and maintain the rover. In fact, Curiosity’s mission was recently extended for another three years, allowing it to continue among NASA’s fleet of important astrobiology missions.
Stay curious with NASA and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the agency’s Curiosity rover on the Red Planet with a double-sided poster that lists some of the intrepid explorer’s inspiring achievements. Download it for free here. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Generosity of science
It’s been a busy decade for Curiosity. The roving explorer studied the skies of the Red Planet, capturing images of shimmering clouds and floating moons. This radiation sensor is helping NASA figure out how to protect future astronauts by measuring the amount of high-energy radiation they would be exposed to on the Martian surface.
But most importantly, Curiosity found that liquid water, as well as the chemical building blocks and nutrients needed to sustain life, have been present in Gale Crater for at least tens of millions of years. The crater once housed a lake that waxed and waned in size over time. This means that each layer higher up Mount Sharp serves as a record of a more recent era of the Martian environment.
Now the intrepid rover is moving through a canyon that marks the transition to a new region believed to have formed as water dried up, leaving behind salty minerals called sulfates.
“We see evidence of dramatic changes in the ancient Martian climate,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “The question now is whether the habitable conditions that Curiosity has found so far have been preserved under these changes. Did they disappear never to return, or did they come and go over millions of years?’
Curiosity made remarkable progress up the mountain. In 2015, the team captured a “postcard” image (see below) of distant backs. Just a speck in that image is a Curiosity-sized rock called “Ilha Novo Destino” — and nearly seven years later, the rover rolled past it last month on its way to the sulfate-rich region.
The Curiosity team plans to spend the next few years exploring the sulfate-rich zone. In it, they refer to targets such as the Gediz Vallis channel, which may have formed during a flood at the end of Mount Sharp’s history, and large cemented cracks that show the effects of groundwater higher up the mountain.
This scene was captured by Curiosity on September 9, 2015, when NASA’s rover was many miles from its current location. The circle shows the location of a Curiosity-sized rock that the rover recently passed by. To its left is the “Paraitepuy Passage” through which Curiosity is now passing. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
How to keep the Rover moving
What is Curiosity’s secret to maintaining an active lifestyle at age 10? A team of hundreds of dedicated engineers, of course, working both in person at JPL and remotely from home.
They catalog every crack in the wheels, test every line of computer code before it’s beamed into space, and drill endless rock samples at JPL’s Mars Yard, ensuring Curiosity can safely do the same.
“As soon as you land on Mars, everything you do is based on the fact that there’s no one to repair it for 100 million miles,” said Andy Mishkin, Curiosity’s acting project manager at JPL. “It’s all about making smart use of what’s already on your rover.”
For example, Curiosity’s robotic probing process has been reinvented many times since landing. At one point, the drill was offline for over a year as engineers redesigned its use to be more like a hand drill. More recently, a set of braking mechanisms that allow the robotic arm to move or stay in place stopped working. Although the arm has been working as usual since the engineers included a set of spare parts, the team has also learned to drill more carefully to preserve the new brakes.
To minimize wheel damage, engineers are keeping an eye out for treacherous spots like the knife-edge terrain they discovered recently. They also developed a traction control algorithm.
The team has taken a similar approach to managing the rover’s slowly waning power. Curiosity relies on a long-lasting nuclear battery, not solar panels, to keep moving. As the plutonium pellets in the battery decay, they generate heat, which the rover converts into energy. Because of the gradual decay of the pellets, the rover cannot do as much in one day as it did in its first year.
Mishkin said the team continues to plan how much power the rover uses each day and has figured out which activities can be done in parallel to optimize the power available to the rover. “Curiosity is definitely doing more multitasking where it’s safe,” Mishkin added.
Through careful planning and engineering hacks, the team has every expectation that the intrepid rover still has years of exploration ahead of it.
More about the mission
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, built Curiosity for NASA and manages the mission on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
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