Some of these instruments sit at the end of Curiosity's five-jointed, 7-foot-long (2.1-meter) robotic arm, which by itself is nearly half as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity.
The arm also wields a 2-inch (5-centimeter) drill, allowing Curiosity to take samples from deep inside Martian rocks. No previous Red Planet rover has been able to do this, researchers say.
"We have an incredible rover," said MSL deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL. "It's the biggest and most capable scientific explorer we've ever sent to the surface of another planet."
Assessing Martian habitability
Curiosity is due to arrive at Mars in early August 2012, touching down at a 100-mile-wide (160-km) crater called Gale.
While the rover's launch was dramatic, its landing will be one for the record books, if all goes well. A rocket-powered sky crane will lower the huge robot down on cables — a maneuver never tried before in the history of planetary exploration. [Video: Curiosity's Peculiar Landing]
A giant mound of sediment rises 3 miles (5 km) into the Martian air from Gale Crater's center. The layers in this mountain appear to preserve about one billion years of Martian history. Curiosity will study these different layers, gaining an in-depth understanding of past and present Martian environments and their potential to harbor life.
Life as we know it depends on liquid water. So the rover will likely spend a lot of time poking around near the mound's base, where Mars-orbiting spacecraft have spotted minerals that form in the presence of water, such as clays and sulfates.
"Going layer by layer, we can do the main goal of this mission, which is to search for habitable environments, " Vasavada said. "Were any of those time periods in early Mars history time periods that could have supported microbial life?"
But if Curiosity climbs higher, its observations could shed light on Mars' shift from relatively warm and wet long ago to cold, dry and dusty today, researchers said.
"We want to understand those transitions, so that's why we're headed there [to Gale]," said Bethany Ehlmann of JPL and Caltech in Pasadena.
Setting the stage for life detection
Curiosity isn't designed to search for Martian life. In fact, if the red dirt of Gale Crater does harbor microbes, the rover will almost certainly drive right over them unawares.
But MSL is a key bridge to future efforts that could actively hunt down possible Martian lifeforms, researchers said. Curiosity's work should help later missions determine where — and when — to look.
"We don't really detect life per se," Vasavada said. "We set the stage for that life detection by figuring out which time periods in early Mars history were the most likely to have supported life and even preserved evidence of that for us today."
- Blast-Off! 'Curiosity' Rover Red Planet Bound
- 11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do
- Complete Coverage: NASA's Huge New Rover Launching to Mars
© 2011 TechMediaNetwork.com. All rights reserved.
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
8 Comments
Add CommentIn Space....finally! even though not manned We have something going! So long as the Boneheads in Washington don't pull the funding! NASA should get a flat 20 billion per year...,and NON-REFUNDABLE!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere needs to be a National effort to get us back into space with our own equipment...this should never happen again!
BY-FAR-AND-AWAY the greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System. The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. In order for Life on Earth to expand it needs the help of humans, who can Terraform other planets to make them suitable for Terrestrial life. If you look at Mother Earth as a Living Organism, often called Gia, then one can consider that the SOLE PURPOSE of humans is to take the PROGENY OF GIA to other worlds. Thus Humans are the agents of reproduction for GIA. A truly NOBLE goal, to bond all people of Earth together in a singular quest. Humans may come & go, but we could create a wonderful legacy that would last BILLIONS OF YEARS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars is actually an easy planet to Terraform, and can actually be done in a trivial one hundred years. Expanding Terrestrial Eco-systems to another World, makes up for all the damage humans have done to the Earth by a million-fold. We have abandoned our duty to Mother Earth by our failure to embrace Space Exploration. A run-of-the-mill, Nuclear Powered Transport would get to Mars in 39 days. Terraforming Mars would be the greatest achievement in the History of Human Civilization, and the most Environmentally Responsible Act Humans have EVER Undertaken.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
"...In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life. Humans could not breath the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for humans under huge domelike inflatable tents containing breathable air. On the other hand, simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across the planets surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities, opening up the surface to advanced plants and increasing numbers of animal types..."
Agree with you. That our investment including funding and energy is much more that the output we should gain, even though it is obscure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you. This is the our future!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe humanity finally have future!
The nasa have money to explore the universe.
They have better conditions to this missions!
(1)You and Mr. Zubrin both overlook a major obastacle to terraforming Mars: without a molten core & mantle, Mars can't generate the magnetic field necessary to protect the atmosphere from behind blown away by the solar wind. Any long-term human habitation of the Red Planet will have to be in domes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(2)High-speed trips are more likely to happen with the VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) system currently under development (see http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-rocket-vasimr-nasa.html) than with nuclear power.
(3) The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. If you're a virus, maybe; otherwise, most life forms try to come to some sort of equilibrium within their environment. Humans have pretty thoroughly trashed the earth when it was our only habitat option - what makes you think we will take any better care of other planets if we can just pack up and move on?
And (4) unless you're watching Captain Planet reruns, the earth-mother's name is Gaia or Gaea, not Gia.
"...without a molten core & mantle, Mars can't generate the magnetic field necessary to protect the atmosphere from behind blown away by the solar wind..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat takes 100's of millions of years, whereas Mars atmosphere can be re-generated in decades. I'm sure tech will have developed LONG, LONG before that is significant to correct the problem. One method is to install large superconducting rings, capturing & redirecting the Solar Wind. Not much energy required, a modest sized Nuclear reactor. Added benefit, Solar anti-particles can be captured to supply fuel for missions to the outer planets, the Oort cloud and even nearby Solar Systems.
"...High-speed trips are more likely to happen with the VASIMR ...than with nuclear power..."
VASIMR is one option. Far more effective when Nuclear Power is the Energy Source. Nuclear is NO-BRAINER for Space Travel AND as THE source of Energy for Human Civilization. There just isn't anything else close to it and likely never will be.
"...#1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. If you're a virus, maybe; otherwise, most life forms try to come to some sort of equilibrium within their environment..."
Yep, that's why mammals, plants, humans expanded to EXTRAORDINARY difficult environments, like the Arctic, instead of kicking back, relaxing & enjoying the warmth of their comfortable southern eco-system - focusing on achieving "equilibrium".
"...have pretty thoroughly trashed the earth when it was our only habitat option..."
You are greatly exaggerating human ill effects on the Earth's environment. I've been around dude, there are the odd places that you can witness some serious environmental degradation, but it is still pretty unusual. Of course, global warming is a human induced large scale change in the Earth's biota, but it will be a NET increase in Biota, not a reduction, it will however, cause a period of disruption in eco-systems, which of course has been common throughout the Earth's history. Nuclear will solve that issue. In any case, we can make up for ALL environmental destruction we have done over our entire history by a factor of 1000X, simply by Terraforming Mars.
And the cause of our harmful environmental actions on the Earth is ENTIRELY political, not technological.
"...the earth-mother's name is Gaia..."
Your right. Congrat's one point out of five. I will correct my spelling in the future. Thanks for the tip.
DWBD, I doubt we have 100 years to terraform Mars, at least in this era of civilization, or maybe life on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo what's the point (besides more make-work welfare, supporting corporate welfare, and more consumption and pollution) of spending $2.5 billion to send another robot to a dead planet? I think all such ventures should be privately financed, with voluntary contributions if they're available. Thinking further ahead, a better project would be working to create viable internal colonies on some asteroids, if only with robots who can carry on human values, as an easier step to colonizing similar environments in other planetary systems, before we destroy our home base.
In my book also, the athropomorphized version of our biosphere is usually spelled Gaia.
"Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011. That two-year slip helped boost the mission's overall cost by 56 percent, to its current $2.5 billion." I do not believe the cost overrun was simply caused by the delay. The cost overrun was caused low balling estimates, design changes, management problems etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this