Mars Rover Curiosity Wraps Up Drilling Work, Prepares for Long Drive

[Buster's Uncle]

Mars Rover Curiosity Wraps Up Drilling Work, Prepares for Long Drive
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  May 21, 2014 7:32 AM



NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument on its robotic arm to illuminate and record this nighttime view of the sandstone rock target "Windjana." Image released May 15, 2014.



NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is about to hit the road again.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover has finished its drilling operations at a sandstone slab dubbed "Windjana," successfully delivering collected samples to its onboard scientific instruments for analysis. The robot will soon resume the long drive toward the base of Mount Sharp, which has long been its ultimate destination, mission officials said.

The rover bored a 2.5-inch-deep (6.4 centimeters) hole into Windjana earlier this month, performing its third full sample-collecting drilling activity since touching down inside Mars' huge Gale Crater in August 2012.

The previous two drilling operations, which investigated fine-grained mudstones at a site called Yellowknife Bay, allowed mission scientists to determine that the Red Planet could have supported microbial life billions of years ago.

Yellowknife Bay is close to Curiosity's landing site. Windjana is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest, on the way toward the foothills of Mount Sharp, which rises more than 3 miles (5 km) into the Martian sky from Gale Crater's center.

Mission scientists want Curiosity to climb up through these foothills, reading a history of the Red Planet's changing environmental conditions as it goes. The rover's measurements could help shed light on why and when Mars changed from a relatively warm and wet planet to the cold and dry world we know today, NASA officials have said.

Curiosity is exploring the Red Planet with the aid of 10 different scientific instruments. Two of the workhorses are the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM), both of which sit on the rover's main body.

CheMin and SAM will perform a detailed analysis of the Windjana samples, as they did for the powder collected at Yellowknife Bay.

While Windjana powder has already been delivered to both CheMin and SAM, Curiosity carries still more of the material, which may be transferred to the instruments during pauses in the rover's driving if need be, NASA officials said.


http://news.yahoo.com/mars-rover-curiosity-wraps-drilling-prepares-long-drive-113222116.html

[Unorthodox]

I'm about ready to start taking odds whether it ever makes it to mt sharp

[Buster's Uncle]

The wheel stuff is not good, that's for sure.

[Lorizael]

I read recently that the Mars rovers have been contaminating Mars with Earth microbes. Two thoughts: If future Mars colonists/robots discover microbes, we'll never be absolutely certain they aren't just ours. And in a few billion years, when the sun expands and Mars is warm again, will our Earth microbes create a new Eden on Mars?

[Buster's Uncle]

One imagines that the window of opportunity for that will be brief - on the order of a few million years maximum if Mars doesn't luckily fall in the new goldilocks zone when the sun has stabilized.  So unlikely to amount to anything - but wouldn't it be neat?

SF fiction idea there, Mr. Writer...

[Geo]

I read recently that the Mars rovers have been contaminating Mars with Earth microbes. Two thoughts: If future Mars colonists/robots discover microbes, we'll never be absolutely certain they aren't just ours. And in a few billion years, when the sun expands and Mars is warm again, will our Earth microbes create a new Eden on Mars?

If there's been microbial contamination, its sofar local.
I'd be surprised if Earth bacteria could survive in the long run at Mars in present conditions.
I'd have thought anything that gets launched to other worlds/moons would be kept as sterile as possible.
And lastly, anything that goes to Mars from Earth has to survive the hostile conditions in deep space for about 3 quarters of a year. In case of a probe that means no human-friendly environmental conditions.

One imagines that the window of opportunity for that will be brief - on the order of a few million years maximum if Mars doesn't luckily fall in the new goldilocks zone when the sun has stabilized.  So unlikely to amount to anything - but wouldn't it be neat?

The models I read about many years ago would put the most stable Goldilocks zone around Saturn orbit. Mars would likely become a new Mercury.