[meteorite-list] NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Drills at 'Telegraph Peak'

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4492

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Drills at 'Telegraph Peak'
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 25, 2015

-- "Telegraph Peak" is third drilling site in outcrop at base of Mount 
Sharp

-- Choice of drilling site motivated by chemistry measurements

-- Mission heading through "Artist's Drive" and higher on Mount Sharp

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its drill on Tuesday, Feb. 24 to collect 
sample powder from inside a rock target called "Telegraph Peak." The target 
sits in the upper portion of "Pahrump Hills," an outcrop the mission has 
been investigating for five months.

The Pahrump Hills campaign previously drilled at two other sites. The 
outcrop is an exposure of bedrock that forms the basal layer of Mount 
Sharp. Curiosity's extended mission, which began last year after a two-year 
prime mission, is examing layers of this mountain that are expected to 
hold records of how ancient wet environments on Mars evolved into drier 
environments.

The rover team is planning to drive Curiosity away from Pahrump Hills 
in coming days, exiting through a narrow valley called "Artist's Drive," 
which will lead the rover along a strategically planned route higher on 
the basal layer of Mount Sharp.

The Telegraph Peak site was selected after the team discussed the large 
set of physical and chemical measurements acquired throughout the campaign. 
In particular, measurements of the chemistry of the Telegraph Peak site, 
using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the rover's arm, 
motivated selection of this target for drilling before the departure from 
Pahrump Hills.

Compared to the chemistry of rocks and soils that Curiosity assessed before 
reaching Mount Sharp, the rocks of Pahrump Hills are relatively enriched 
in the element silicon in proportion to the amounts of the elements aluminum 
and magnesium. The latest drilling site exhibits that characteristic even 
more strongly than the earlier two, which were lower in the outcrop.

"When you graph the ratios of silica to magnesium and silica to aluminum, 
'Telegraph Peak' is toward the end of the range we've seen," said Curiosity 
co-investigator Doug Ming, of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. "It's 
what you would expect if there has been some acidic leaching. We want 
to see what minerals are present where we found this chemistry."

The rock-powder sample from Telegraph Peak goes to the rover's internal 
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument for identification of the 
minerals. After that analysis, the team may also choose to deliver sample 
material to Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of laboratory 
instruments.

The sample-collection drilling at Telegraph Peak was the first in Curiosity's 
30 months on Mars to be conducted without a preliminary "mini drill" test 
of the rock's suitability for drilling. The team judged full-depth drilling 
to be safe for the drill based on similarities of the target to the previous 
Pahrump Hills targets. The rover used a low-percussion-level drilling 
technique that it first used on the previous drilling target, "Mojave 
2."

Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp after two years of examining 
other sites inside Gale Crater and driving toward the mountain at the 
crater's center.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient 
habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. 
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute 
of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover's APXS was 
provided by the Canadian Space Agency. CheMin was developed by NASA Ames 
Research Center, Moffett Air Force Base, California, and SAM was developed 
by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

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

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity


Media Contact

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

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

2015-069