Curiosity drills into its first Martian rock

Written By Unknown on Senin, 11 Februari 2013 | 22.10

MUMBAI: Nasa's nearly one-tonne Curiosity rover has just made history when for the first time it used a drill, located at the end of its robotic arm, to bore into a flat rock on Mars and collect samples from its interior, says a Sunday Nasa announcement.

Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6,2012 at Gale Crater. Nasa associate administrator for the agency's science mission directorate, John Grunsfeld, has been quoted as saying that "this is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky crane landing last August, another proud day for America".

Nasa says that this was the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect samples from Mars. The announcement says that the hole drilled into the rock is 1.6cm wide and 6.4cm deep. The rock is named "John Klein", in memory of Mars Science Laboratory's deputy project manager who died in 2011. The process involved extensive testing on earth.

Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory's (JPL) Louise Jandura who is the chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system said: "To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1200 holes in 20 types of rocks on earth.'' She said that the most advanced planetary robot ever designed was now a fully operating analytical laboratory.

The rock is believed to contain evidence about ancient wet environment. For the next several days ground controllers will command the robot's arm to carry out a series of steps to process the sample, ultimately delivering portions to the instruments inside. They will be analysed by Curiosity's chemistry and minerology instrument (CheMin).


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