[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Prepares to Study Martian Soil

[Ron Baalke]

Oct. 4, 2012

Dwayne Brown 
Headquarters, Washington    
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 
818-354-5011 
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 12-348

NASA MARS CURIOSITY ROVER PREPARES TO STUDY MARTIAN SOIL

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Curiosity rover is in a position on Mars where 
scientists and engineers can begin preparing the rover to take its 
first scoop of soil for analysis. 

Curiosity is the centerpiece of the two-year Mars Science Laboratory 
mission. The rover's ability to put soil samples into analytical 
instruments is central to assessing whether its present location on 
Mars, called Gale Crater, ever offered environmental conditions 
favorable for microbial life. Mineral analysis can reveal past 
environmental conditions. Chemical analysis can check for ingredients 
necessary for life. 

"We now have reached an important phase that will get the first solid 
samples into the analytical instruments in about two weeks," said 
Mission Manager Michael Watkins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
(JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "Curiosity has been so well-behaved that we 
have made great progress during the first two months of the mission." 

The rover's preparatory operations will involve testing its robotic 
scooping capabilities to collect and process soil samples. Later, it 
also will use a hammering drill to collect powdered samples from 
rocks. To begin preparations for a first scoop, the rover used one of 
its wheels Wednesday to scuff the soil to expose fresh material. 

Next, the rover twice will scoop up some soil, shake it thoroughly 
inside the sample-processing chambers to scrub the internal surfaces, 
then discard the sample. Curiosity will scoop and shake a third 
measure of soil and place it in an observation tray for inspection by 
cameras mounted on the rover's mast. A portion of the third sample 
will be delivered to the mineral-identifying chemistry and mineralogy 
(CheMin) instrument inside the rover. From a fourth scoopful, samples 
will be delivered to both CheMin and to the sample analysis at Mars 
(SAM) instrument, which identifies chemical ingredients. 

"We're going to take a close look at the particle size distribution in 
the soil here to be sure it's what we want," said Daniel Limonadi of 
JPL, lead systems engineer for Curiosity's surface sampling and 
science system. "We are being very careful with this first time using 
the scoop on Mars." 

The rinse-and-discard cycles serve a quality-assurance purpose similar 
to a common practice in geochemical laboratory analysis on Earth. 

"It is standard to run a split of your sample through first and dump 
it out, to clean out any residue from a previous sample," said JPL's 
Joel Hurowitz, a sampling system scientist on the Curiosity team. "We 
want to be sure the first sample we analyze is unambiguously Martian, 
so we take these steps to remove any residual material from Earth 
that might be on the walls of our sample handling system." 

Rocknest is the name of the area of soil Curiosity will test and 
analyze. The rover pulled up to the windblown, sandy and dusty 
location Oct. 2. The Rocknest patch is about 8 feet by 16 feet (2.5 
meters by 5 meters). The area provides plenty of area for scooping 
several times. Diverse rocks nearby provide targets for investigation 
with the instruments on Curiosity's mast during the weeks the rover 
is stationed at Rocknest for this first scooping campaign. 

Curiosity's motorized, clamshell-shaped scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 
centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long, and can sample to 
a depth of about 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters). It is part of the 
collection and handling Martian rock analysis (CHIMRA) device on a 
turret of tools at the end of the rover's arm. CHIMRA also includes a 
series of chambers and labyrinths for sorting, sieving and portioning 
samples collected by the scoop or by the arm's percussive drill. 

Following the work at Rocknest, the rover team plans to drive 
Curiosity about 100 yards (about 100 meters) eastward into the 
Glenelg area and select a rock as the first target for use of its 
drill. 

JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and built Curiosity. 

For more about Curiosity, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/msl 

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: 

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity 

and 

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity 
	
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