[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Tastes Scooped, Sieved Sand

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4826

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Tastes Scooped, Sieved Sand
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 21, 2016

At its current location for inspecting an active sand dune, NASA's Curiosity 
Mars rover is adding some sample-processing moves not previously used 
on Mars.

Sand from the second and third samples the rover is scooping from "Namib 
Dune" will be sorted by grain size with two sieves. The coarser sieve 
is making its debut, and using it also changes the way the treated sample 
is dropped into an inlet port for laboratory analysis inside the rover.

Positioning of the rover to grab a bite of the dune posed a challenge, 
too. Curiosity reached this sampling site, called "Gobabeb," on Jan. 12.

"It was pretty challenging to drive into the sloping sand and then turn 
on the sand into the position that was the best to study the dunes," said 
Michael McHenry of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. 
He is the Curiosity mission's campaign rover planner for collecting these 
samples.

Curiosity has scooped up sample material at only one other site since 
it landed on Mars in August 2012. It sampled dust and sand at a windblown 
drift site called "Rocknest" in October and November 2012. Between there 
and Gobabeb, the rover collected sample material for analysis at nine 
rock targets, by drilling rather than scooping.

The mission's current work is the first close-up study of active sand 
dunes anywhere other than Earth. Namib and nearby mounds of dark sand 
are part of the "Bagnold Dune Field," which lines the northwestern flank 
of a layered mountain where Curiosity is examining rock records of ancient 
environmental conditions on Mars. Investigation of the dunes is providing 
information about how wind moves and sorts sand particles in conditions 
with much less atmosphere and less gravity than on Earth.

Sand in dunes has a range of grain sizes and compositions. Sorting by 
wind will concentrate certain grain sizes and compositions, because composition 
is related to density, based on where and when the wind has been active. 
The Gobabeb site was chosen to include recently formed ripples. Information 
about these aspects of Mars' modern environment may also aid the mission's 
interpretation of composition variations and ripple patterns in ancient 
sandstones that formed from wind or flowing water.

Curiosity scooped its first dune sample on Jan. 14, but the rover probed 
the dune first by scuffing it with a wheel. "The scuff helped give us 
confidence we have enough sand where we're scooping that the path of the 
scoop won't hit the ground under the sand," McHenry said.

That first scoop was processed much as Rocknest samples were: A set of 
complex moves of a multi-chambered device on the rover's arm passed the 
material through a sieve that screened out particles bigger than 150 microns 
(0.006 inch); some of the material that passed the sieve was dropped into 
laboratory inlet ports from a "portioner" on the device; material blocked 
by the sieve was dumped onto the ground.

The portioner is positioned directly over an opened inlet port on the 
deck of the rover to drop a portion into it when the processing device 
is vibrating and a release door is opened. Besides analyzing samples delivered 
to its internal laboratory instruments, Curiosity can use other instruments 
to examine sample material dumped onto the ground.

Curiosity collected its second scoop of Gobabeb on Jan. 19. This is when 
the coarser sieve came into play. It allows particles up to 1 millimeter 
(1,000 microns or 0.04 inch) to pass through.

Sand from the second scoop was initially fed to the 150-micron sieve. 
Material that did not pass through that sieve was then fed to the 1-millimeter 
sieve. The fraction routed for laboratory analysis is sand grains that 
did not pass through the finer sieve, but did pass through the coarser 
one.

"What you have left is predominantly grains that are smaller than 1 millimeter 
and larger than 150 microns," said JPL's John Michael Morookian, rover 
planning team lead for Curiosity.

This fraction is dropped into a laboratory inlet by the scoop, rather 
than the portioner. Morookian decribed this step: "We start the vibration 
and gradually tilt the scoop. The material flows off the end of the scoop, 
in more of a stream than all at once."

Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp in 2014 after fruitfully investigating 
outcrops closer to its landing site and then trekking to the layered mountain. 
On the lower portion of the mountain, the mission is studying how Mars' 
ancient environment changed from wet conditions favorable for microbial 
life to harsher, drier conditions. For more information about Curiosity, 
visit:

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


Media Contact

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

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo at nasa.gov 

2016-017