[meteorite-list] Curiosity Rover Drill Pulls First Taste From Mars Mountain

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-324

NASA Rover Drill Pulls First Taste From Mars Mountain
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 25, 2014

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has collected its first taste of the layered 
mountain whose scientific allure drew the mission to choose this part 
of Mars as a landing site.

Late Wednesday, Sept. 24, the rover's hammering drill chewed about 2.6 
inches (6.7 centimeters) deep into a basal-layer outcrop on Mount Sharp 
and collected a powdered-rock sample. Data and images received early Thursday 
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, confirmed success 
of this operation. The powder collected by the drilling is temporarily 
held within the sample-handling mechanism on the rover's arm.

"This drilling target is at the lowest part of the base layer of the mountain, 
and from here we plan to examine the higher, younger layers exposed in 
the nearby hills," said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada 
of JPL. "This first look at rocks we believe to underlie Mount Sharp is 
exciting because it will begin to form a picture of the environment at 
the time the mountain formed, and what led to its growth."

After landing on Mars in August 2012 but before beginning the drive toward 
Mount Sharp, Curiosity spent much of the mission's first year productively 
studying an area much closer to the landing site, but in the opposite 
direction. The mission accomplished its science goals in that Yellowknife 
Bay area. Analysis of drilled rocks there disclosed an ancient lakebed 
environment that, more than three billion years ago, offered ingredients 
and a chemical energy gradient favorable for microbes, if any existed 
there.

>From Yellowknife Bay to the base of Mount Sharp, Curiosity drove more 
than 5 miles (8 kilometers) in about 15 months, with pauses at a few science 
waypoints. The emphasis in mission operations has now changed from drive, 
drive, drive to systematic layer-by-layer investigation.

"We're putting on the brakes to study this amazing mountain," said Curiosity 
Deputy Project Manager Jennifer Trosper of JPL. "Curiosity flew hundreds 
of millions of miles to do this."

Curiosity arrived Sept. 19 at an outcrop called "Pahrump Hills," which 
is a section of the mountain's basal geological unit, called the Murray 
formation. Three days later, the rover completed a "mini-drill" procedure 
at the selected drilling target, "Confidence Hills," to assess the target 
rock's suitability for drilling. A mini-drill activity last month determined 
that a rock slab under consideration then was not stable enough for full 
drilling, but Confidence Hills passed this test.

The rock is softer than any of the previous three targets where Curiosity 
has collected a drilled sample for analysis.

Between the mini-drill test and the sample-collection drilling, researchers 
used tools on Curiosity's mast and robotic arm for close-up inspection 
of geometrically distinctive features on the nearby surface of the rock.

These features on the Murray formation mudstones are the accumulations 
of resistant materials. They occur both as discrete clusters and as dendrites, 
where forms are arranged in tree-like branching. By investigating the 
shapes and chemical ingredients in these features, the team hopes to gain 
information about the possible composition of fluids at this Martian location 
long ago.

The next step will be to deliver the rock-powder sample into a scoop on 
the rover's arm. In the open scoop, the powder's texture can be observed 
for an assessment of whether it is safe for further sieving, portioning 
and delivery into Curiosity's internal laboratory instruments without 
clogging hardware. The instruments can perform many types of analysis 
to identify chemistry and mineralogy of the source rock.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient 
habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. 
JPL, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit: 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl 

http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook at: 

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and on Twitter at: 

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

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

2014-324