STANDING TALL: NASA's giant Curiosity rover should reach the surface of Mars in August 2012.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Don't be fooled by the innocuous name—Curiosity, NASA's new Mars rover, is a brute.
Curiosity, which is slated to launch Saturday morning on an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, is the biggest planetary rover ever built. The six-wheel-drive robot is three meters long—longer than a Smart ForTwo mini car—and its headlike mast rises 2.1 meters above the ground. With a suite of 10 science instruments, Curiosity weighs in at nearly 900 kilograms, more than NASA's last three Mars rovers combined. [Read more about Mars exploration in this special report.]
To put its size in perspective, consider that Curiosity is scheduled to touch down in August 2012, just over 15 years after NASA's first Mars rover began exploring the Red Planet. That rover, Sojourner, stood about 30 centimeters high. Curiosity is designed to roll over obstacles twice that tall.
But brute force is not everything—it's what's inside that counts. "We have our generic bigger and better answer" for what is new about the $2.5-billion Curiosity, says John Grotzinger, a planetary geologist at the California Institute of Technology and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Grotzinger, the mission's project scientist, notes that the rover's technology is simply superior to that of its predecessors—the cameras have better resolution, for instance, and can take high-definition video.
And unlike its predecessors, Curiosity will not depend on sunlight to carry out its mission. Instead its power will come from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator—a 4.8-kilogram supply of radioactive plutonium 238 that decays to produce heat. Devices called thermocouples turn some of that heat into electricity, providing about 110 watts to the rover. (The heat also keeps the rover's systems warm enough to function.) Plutonium 238 has a half-life of more than 80 years, so Curiosity may be able to exceed its 23-month nominal mission lifetime by several years.
But the real key to Curiosity's capabilities are two instruments that can make definitive chemical analyses of what the Red Planet is made of. "This is a mobile chemistry laboratory," Grotzinger says. In fact, the Curiosity moniker came along only in 2009, when a Kansas sixth grader named Clara Ma won a naming contest. Prior to that, the mission was known more straightforwardly as the Mars Science Laboratory. The rover's chemical analyses should dig into what Mars was like billions of years ago, when it was wetter and could have featured niches conducive to life.
The two key geology instruments, an x-ray diffraction unit and a multipurpose sample-analysis system, will be fed by a robotic arm that can scoop up soil or drill into a rock to collect a powdered sample from the interior. The x-ray diffraction instrument will aim a beam of x-rays at samples to reveal their structure and composition, making possible definitive identifications of specific minerals. The sample-analysis instruments, on the other hand, can taste the composition of the surrounding atmosphere or heat solid samples to 1,000 degrees Celsius to release trace compounds within.
With its chemistry tools, Curiosity may help shed some light on all-important methane. Some research indicates that methane, a molecule that has mainly biological origins on Earth, is seeping from Mars in plumes that hint at ongoing geologic—or possibly even biological—activity there. If Curiosity encounters methane in the atmosphere, the rover can make isotopic analyses of the gas to help determine the methane's origin.
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18 Comments
Add Comment3-stage landing??? WTF? In all my years of watching NASA, I have never understood why, when they find something that works, they switch to something else - something with far more possibilities for failure. And PLUTONIUM??? Solar panels kept the twins going for MANY times their expected life span. Why would any group of smarties risk a launch failure and drop the humanity's worst nightmare back on top of us? IF this works, it will be wonderful. If it doesn't, it will be the dumbest thing NASA has ever done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvidence of life on Mars or anywhere else does not prove the presence of God everywhere in the Universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't understand why 3/4 of the current posts on a science magazine's website are hating on science. Does SciAm not ban user accounts? Anyways in response to the one reasonable post, the reason they needed a new landing system is the weight of the craft. The airbag system was already pushed to its limit by the smaller spirit and opportunity rovers, no bag material could have handled the weight of curiosity without a VERY high risk of popping (virtually guaranteed). There are some articles that go over this. As to the Plutonium, the launch site is away from populated areas, and the material itself is enclosed and sealed so that even in the even of catastrophic failure of the rocket it will remain in the capsule. And the rocket being used is quite reliable. The plutonium is needed because the added mass of solar panels large enough to run the experiments would make launching it on current technology impractical
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeace Beau...they are not evil. Just imagine that God himself is describing the second coming. A "bigger, better, faster, stronger" Christ - the ultimate hybrid of sorts. We all do Gods work, no matter what we call it. Do not be angry. Close your eyes and breath and know again the peace that surrounds us always and all ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlutonium, woooo! Yep, it's like uranium but a little heavier. Unbelievable, how gullible people are believing all the crapola about Plutonium that paid-by-oil pseudo-greenie groups, and mass media put out. Bernie Cohen offered to eat an ounce of plutonium if Ralph Nader would eat an ounce of caffeine. That sent Ralph Nader running with his tail between his legs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://spectator.org/archives/2011/04/01/pass-the-plutonium
There is such a ridiculously small risk to Earth or anybody from that tiny Plutonium can on curiosity. Solar panels don't have the base-load to power much. All the techniques for curiosity were chosen for this specific mission. I'm looking forward to the launch and later landing, it also proves technology which helps on Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell...It's the only show in town! We can't place our own people in the ISS without paying Russia. Along with that who knows when we'll be able to go back into space! Sad, To sit in the back seat and watch an economically depressed country take the HIGH GROUND! China isn't sitting on its collective hands and waiting...what they don't develop on their own they'll steal... oh, did I mention that we can't do a thing about it....! I certainly hope that The Big C works as well as the other two. Great fun to watch and see what it can uncover.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere should be evidence of past intelligent life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe new rover is far too heavy to land with airbags like the MERs. Solar panels may power the smaller rovers, but they have lasted so long due to fortuitous windy "cleaning events" that dusted them off. Also, the MERs have to hibernate during the Martian winter due to less available solar energy, and Curiosity will not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood luck to Curiosity. The space is not a comfortable place for people, so the robots should go first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I read some of these replies, I realize that I may be mistaken in my assessment. I do sincerely hope that Curiosity makes it - and does some good science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA in cooperation with JPL, then later on with ESA have sent several spacecraft to the planets with Plutonium powered Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs), and not once has there been a mishap:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisViking 1 - Mars
Viking 2 - Mars
Voyager 1 - Jupiter and Saturn
Voyager 2 - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
Galileo - Jupiter
Cassini - Saturn
New Horizons - Pluto
I recall NASA doing a test where they used a diesel locomotive to smash into an RTG cannister, to prove to the alarmist "greenies" that the cannisters were able to withstand rupturing under the mechanical stresses that would be encountered if the spacecraft experienced a worst case launch failure. Naturally the "greenies" came up with the excuse that the test was not valid because the locomotive impact did not include the cannister exposed to the conflagration of exploding then burning rocket fuel. Of course the test cannister did not have any plutonium in it.
Don't forget that evidence of life on Mars or anywhere else does not disprove the presence of God everywhere in the Universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt also does not prove the presence of God anywhere in the Universe.
etc.
My point is that this forum should be about Science. If you read that "opinion blogs" here by "invited" columnists, the juvenile political rants are bad enough. At least we, the readers, can set an example they can follow - once they return to doing science.
Nagnostic,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn all-too-revealing link.
http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-American/product-reviews/B00008DP07
"Scientific American Magazine was the publication that fired my enthusiasm for science ..."
"Witnessing the editorial deterioration of Scientific American over the years has been a sad disappointment ..."
"Another wrong turn that they have taken is that they have become slightly political with a noticeable left-wing agenda ..."
"... the magazine abandoned content written by scientists in favour of populist journalism written by staff."
"... In almost every instance, the writers of Scientific American draw the immediate conclusion that only the government can possibly solve the pressing issues of the day. They don't even give much consideration to anything else. They immediately concede most any problem to the authority of the state ..."
"... I've also noticed a recent trend of religion bashing, with the underlying message being that anyone who believes in God must be an ignorant rube ..."
"... The opinions are always slanted liberal, which is diappointing since I'd like both sides of issues ..."
"... the incessant preaching and politically slanted editorial stances should be motivation enough to pull the plug ..."
Alas! All too true!
I'll skip the rest of the reviews.
"Humanity's worst nightmare???" Give me a break. Compare consequences of 10 lbs of Pu238 released in a an incredibly strong package into the atmosphere to ... oh, how about WWII with its 60 million dead. (wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties ...)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an atheist, I find it personnally offensive that those who believe in a god, push their agenda onto a Scientific magazine. I find it even appalling that religious fanatics, keep attacking Evolution, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. I think religionists should realize that at least in my case, you have me confused with someone who actually cares?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI concede that the quality of the reporting has in my opinion, gone down compared to the "good old days", when SA felt like it was more of a peer reviewed journal. Even so, SA fills a need for those of us who are either geographically isolated, or don't have the time to attend scientific forums or University open days, to keep informed about the latest happenings in Science and Technology.
Well it seems I was proved right, the Curiosity spacecraft lifted off successfully, and as usual *nothing* happened.
Some folks have stated there should be evidence for life on Mars; I'd be more cautious and say there may be evidence, which is why they are sending Curiosity over to find out. I just hope NASA learned from their Viking mission embarrassment, when they got ambiguous results, and opted to say there is no life on Mars, instead of admitting they sent a cheap and nasty experiment package, that gave them uncertain results. I hope Curiosity has a decent life sciences experiment package on board.
neilrued,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"As an atheist, I find it personnally offensive that those who believe in a god, push their agenda onto a Scientific magazine ..."
Has anyone done so here?
Most of us Baby Boomers have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing that "Mom, apple pie, and launch the Mars Rover!" is the way to go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the process, the planet is being trashed by more and more launches, as the industry WORLDWIDE increases, to launch even PRIVATIZED space vehicles, based upon the tried and tested technology of the environmentally-disasterous Space Shuttle era.
At this point, I question the need to go into outer space at all, to accomplish the very thing that we're collectively seeking to do in the first place.
This veil of hypocrisy of the space program being for the 'betterment of all Mankind' must be lifted, to reveal what is REALLY going on with the trashing of the environment at large.
I've just written an article about what I feel are "Four Factual Errors about the Space Program" - including a much better, cheaper and more reliable way that NASA already had to land their 'Curiosity' rover on Mars.
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/4spaceprogramerrors.html
Other follow-up material to study as well:
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/floattospace.html
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/NASASatelliteReEntryDanger.html
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/MonsterMarsRocket.html
Do share with me your thoughts.