[meteorite-list] NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

[Ron Baalke]

Feb. 9, 2013

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

Guy Webster 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 
818-354-6278 
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 13-044

NASA CURIOSITY ROVER COLLECTS FIRST MARTIAN BEDROCK SAMPLE

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover has, for the first time, 
used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a 
flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This 
is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a 
sample on Mars. 

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches 
(6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary 
bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to 
Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone 
wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its 
laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill. 

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed now is a fully 
operating analytical laboratory on Mars," said John Grunsfeld, NASA 
associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. 
"This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team 
since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for 
America." 

For the next several days, ground controllers will command the rover's 
arm to carry out a series of steps to process the sample, ultimately 
delivering portions to the instruments inside. 

"We commanded the first full-depth drilling, and we believe we have 
collected sufficient material from the rock to meet our objectives of 
hardware cleaning and sample drop-off," said Avi Okon, drill 
cognizant engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 
Pasadena. 

Rock powder generated during drilling travels up flutes on the bit. 
The bit assembly has chambers to hold the powder until it can be 
transferred to the sample-handling mechanisms of the rover's 
Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) 
device. 

Before the rock powder is analyzed, some will be used to scour traces 
of material that may have been deposited onto the hardware while the 
rover still was on Earth, despite thorough cleaning before launch. 

"We'll take the powder we acquired and swish it around to scrub the 
internal surfaces of the drill bit assembly," said JPL's Scott 
McCloskey, drill systems engineer. "Then we'll use the arm to 
transfer the powder out of the drill into the scoop, which will be 
our first chance to see the acquired sample." 

"Building a tool to interact forcefully with unpredictable rocks on 
Mars required an ambitious development and testing program," said 
JPL's Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample 
system."To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we 
made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock 
on Earth." 

Inside the sample-handling device, the powder will be vibrated once or 
twice over a sieve that screens out any particles larger than 
six-thousandths of an inch (150 microns) across. Small portions of 
the sieved sample will fall through ports on the rover deck into the 
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and the Sample Analysis 
at Mars (SAM) instrument. These instruments then will begin the 
much-anticipated detailed analysis. 

The rock Curiosity drilled is called "John Klein" in memory of a Mars 
Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011. Drilling 
for a sample is the last new activity for NASA's Mars Science 
Laboratory Project, which is using the car-size Curiosity rover to 
investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater has ever offered 
an environment favorable for life. 

JPL manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 
Washington. 

For more about the mission, 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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