Curiosity reaches 'biggest milestone' since landing

The Curiosity rover has drilled its first holes in Martian rock. The shallow hole on the right was a test run for the drill at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Instruments onboard Curiosity have analyzed the rock powder collected from the deeper hole, and NASA scientists are working to interpret that data. /NASA image


NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars passed the last major test of its equipment about a week ago, using the drill on its robotic arm for the first time.

In a prepared statement released Feb. 9, John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, hailed deployment of the drill as a key achievement. "The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," he said. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August."

After drilling a shallow test hole, Curiosity bored about 2.5 inches into a rock called "John Klein," which was named in honor of a rover team member who died in 2011. Rock powder collected during the drilling has been analyzed with sensors onboard NASA's six-wheeled robotic geologist, and scientists are working to interpret that data. The car-sized rover is trying to determine whether the Gale Crater on Mars ever had conditions suitable for sustaining life, including clues in Martian rocks that would indicate the presence of liquid water millions of years ago.

Rock powder Curiosity collects is analyzed with the rover's Chemical and Mineralogy instrument as well as its Sample Analysis at Mars instrument.

The CheMin instrument uses X-ray technology to produce data that is transmitted back to Earth for detailed analysis. It can take upto 10 hours for the instrument to process a sample.

The SAM instrument has three devices that analyze rock powder at the molecular level: a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a gas chromatograph and a tunable laser spectrometer. The quadrupole mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph are designed to detect organic compounds that could be the building blocks for Martian life. The tunable laser spectrometer is designed to analyze Martian carbon dioxide and to detect traces of methane. Many life forms on Earth produce carbon dioxide and methane.