Despite a gummed up drill bit and three days of very un-Martian precipitation, engineers pronounced the test a success--and learned to expect the unexpected, whether it be in the California outback or on Mars
Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena carry a Mars-class rover toward the western shoreline of Mono Lake in California. During the first week of October, a team of researchers from JPL, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Carnegie Institution for Science conducted its first field test of a drilling and caching system that could be used on a Mars sample-return mission proposed for 2018....[More]
READY TO ROVE
Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena carry a Mars-class rover toward the western shoreline of Mono Lake in California. During the first week of October, a team of researchers from JPL, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Carnegie Institution for Science conducted its first field test of a drilling and caching system that could be used on a Mars sample-return mission proposed for 2018. Pictured [left to right] are software engineer Matt DiCicco; mechanical engineer Paulo Younse; electrical engineer Ron Morgan (in the blue jacket); and engineering supervisor and principal investigator for development of sample acquisition and caching technology, Paul Backes.
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Bruce Lieberman
ZEROING IN
Pamela Conrad, an astrobiologist at Goddard, contemplates the rover's next move as it inches closer to a rock targeted for coring. The dark rock is pumice dating back to a volcanic eruption below the lake about 1,700 years ago....[More]
ZEROING IN
Pamela Conrad, an astrobiologist at Goddard, contemplates the rover's next move as it inches closer to a rock targeted for coring. The dark rock is pumice dating back to a volcanic eruption below the lake about 1,700 years ago. It is partially covered with a layer of calcium carbonate that formed when the rock was submerged below the surface of the lake. Scientists believe this evaporating basin is similar to what may have existed on Mars about four billion years ago. Conrad is a principal co-investigator for NASA's ongoing Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) to test technology for Mars exploration and study the habitability of extreme environments.
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Bruce Lieberman
CONTACT!
Once a microscopic imager on board the rover photographs the drill site on a target rock, a tungsten carbide drill bit at the end of the rover's arm moves into position and bites into the rock....[More]
CONTACT!
Once a microscopic imager on board the rover photographs the drill site on a target rock, a tungsten carbide drill bit at the end of the rover's arm moves into position and bites into the rock. The drill employs both percussion, like a jackhammer, as well as rotation to extract a core. A drilling session can take several minutes—the drill starts and stops in bursts lasting several seconds. Boring into hard substances like basalt can take some time. The bit is designed to penetrate about five centimeters into the rock. Engineers monitor the levels of electrical current powering the drill; a surge can mean the drill is binding or otherwise stuck.
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Bruce Lieberman
DRILL BABY, DRILL
The evaporative environment at Mono Lake, revealing calcium carbonate formations that were once submerged, may have characterized Mars' ancient past....[More]
DRILL BABY, DRILL
The evaporative environment at Mono Lake, revealing calcium carbonate formations that were once submerged, may have characterized Mars' ancient past. Evidence of past life may be entrained in such geologic formations.
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Bruce Lieberman
TUFA
The NASA team worked at the western shoreline of the lake, where volcanic pumice boulders caked with a layer of calcium carbonate pock the landscape....[More]
TUFA
The NASA team worked at the western shoreline of the lake, where volcanic pumice boulders caked with a layer of calcium carbonate pock the landscape. In other places around the lake geologic formations called tufa, formed underwater and now exposed in the evaporating lake, make Mono Lake's shoreline an eerie sight. Tufa are created over hundreds, even thousands of years when spring water bearing calcium bubbles up through alkaline lake water rich in carbonates. The calcium and carbonates combine, creating limestone towers that grow around the mouth of the underwater spring.
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Bruce Lieberman
AUTOMATED CACHING
Team members examine the rover's SHEC (Sample Handling, Encapsulation and Containerization) system as a handling arm inside extracts a sample tube filled with a rock core from the rover's drill bit and inserts it into a canister, where it is capped and sealed....[More]
AUTOMATED CACHING
Team members examine the rover's SHEC (Sample Handling, Encapsulation and Containerization) system as a handling arm inside extracts a sample tube filled with a rock core from the rover's drill bit and inserts it into a canister, where it is capped and sealed. The SHEC system, designed by Younse at JPL, houses four drill bits for coring rock and 19 sample tubes cached in a canister the size of a stout coffee mug. During a sample-return mission envisioned by engineers and scientists, the rover's arm would lift the filled canister and place it on the ground. A second rover would retrieve the container and transport it to a launch vehicle; once loaded it would blast off and rendezvous with a Mars orbiter. The orbiter would then rocket the cached rock cores back to Earth. Pictured [far left] is Andrew Steele, a Carnegie astrobiologist and co-principal investigator for AMASE. Also pictured, [left to right] are Conrad, Younse and DiCicco.
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Bruce Lieberman
GETTING GUMMED UP
Moisture inside a target rock can cause problems for drilling operations, engineers discovered during their field tests at Mono. The drill bit generates heat from friction as it bores into the rock, and water combines with core tailings to create clay that can gum up the drill....[More]
GETTING GUMMED UP
Moisture inside a target rock can cause problems for drilling operations, engineers discovered during their field tests at Mono. The drill bit generates heat from friction as it bores into the rock, and water combines with core tailings to create clay that can gum up the drill. Engineers discussed designing a way for the drill to disconnect from the bit if it becomes stuck—allowing the rover to cut its losses and move on to another target.
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Bruce Lieberman
A SAMPLE PLAN
On a Mars sample-return mission, the rover would do all the work drilling cores and caching rock samples for a return flight. But during field tests it is all about learning in stages how the technology should be developed for its ultimate mission....[More]
A SAMPLE PLAN
On a Mars sample-return mission, the rover would do all the work drilling cores and caching rock samples for a return flight. But during field tests it is all about learning in stages how the technology should be developed for its ultimate mission. Jennifer Eigenbrode (pictured), an organic bio-geochemist from Goddard, and Steele, from Carnegie, examine the tailings they just collected from a bore hole.
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Bruce Lieberman
HOLY GRAIL
Many planetary scientists view a successful Mars sample-return mission as a kind of "Holy Grail" of solar system exploration—an unprecedented opportunity to bring pristine pieces of another planet directly back to labs on Earth for in-depth analysis....[More]
HOLY GRAIL
Many planetary scientists view a successful Mars sample-return mission as a kind of "Holy Grail" of solar system exploration—an unprecedented opportunity to bring pristine pieces of another planet directly back to labs on Earth for in-depth analysis. Under current designs for a drilling and caching system, rock cores would measure about five centimeters long and one centimeter in diameter. Pictured here is one such core sample from a target rock at Mono Lake, along with the unsealed metal sample tube that held it.
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Bruce Lieberman
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I'm just guessing, but wouldn't the Earthly calcium carbonate structures have been deposited as the water slowly evaporated as a result of increasing drought and heat?
On Mars, wouldn't the final evaporation of water have been produced by diminishing atmospheric pressure as the magnetic field diminished? Wouldn't the Martian atmosphere have had to contain significant quantities of carbon for it to have been sequestered by water and calcium?
It seems unlikely that these precise conditions existed at the time of the final evaporation of water on Mars. Expect the unexpected!
You don't need heat to evaporate water. What you need is low water vapor/content. Think freeze-dried. The upper dry valleys of Antarctica are the most arid places on earth. The average temperature is about -30C.
The Martian atmosphere contains lots of carbon - it's 95 % CO2 (at about 10 mbar). The latest mission to Mars (Phoenix) found about 4% CaCO3 in the soil.
I agree Wayne, sample return at a cost of $6 billion (probably double by the time we finish) is a DUMB idea (do you hear that NASA!!!). We don't know where to go on Mars to get the best sample. After spending all those $$$, destroying all the other Mars exploration and research programs, waiting around for 4-8 years, we could get a useless sample, or none at all. It's clear that Mars is a very heterogeneous planet. We need to explore and chemically analyze much more if it before we ever do a sample return mission. For the same amount of money we could send 15 robotic missions to run many of the same analyses we would do here on Earth. Robotics have gotten pretty sophisticated! The Phoenix mission, at a cost of about $400 million, totally changed our ideas of Mars' geochemistry.
I hear tell there are still discoveries being made through ongoing analysis of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions. What makes you think analysis of returned Mars samples would stop with what we could do in the next 15 robotic missions?
I wonder if it would be possible to have these collection rovers at multiple sites, each with a return vehicle that would all rendezvous with and transfer their samples to a single (or couple) return-to-Earth spacecraft.
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10 Comments
Add CommentI'm just guessing, but wouldn't the Earthly calcium carbonate structures have been deposited as the water slowly evaporated as a result of increasing drought and heat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn Mars, wouldn't the final evaporation of water have been produced by diminishing atmospheric pressure as the magnetic field diminished? Wouldn't the Martian atmosphere have had to contain significant quantities of carbon for it to have been sequestered by water and calcium?
It seems unlikely that these precise conditions existed at the time of the final evaporation of water on Mars. Expect the unexpected!
Spending 6 Billion on a one time mission is just a plain waste...for that amount of money we should be able to do so much more....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou don't need heat to evaporate water. What you need is low water vapor/content. Think freeze-dried. The upper dry valleys of Antarctica are the most arid places on earth. The average temperature is about -30C.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Martian atmosphere contains lots of carbon - it's 95 % CO2 (at about 10 mbar). The latest mission to Mars (Phoenix) found about 4% CaCO3 in the soil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree Wayne, sample return at a cost of $6 billion (probably double by the time we finish) is a DUMB idea (do you hear that NASA!!!). We don't know where to go on Mars to get the best sample. After spending all those $$$, destroying all the other Mars exploration and research programs, waiting around for 4-8 years, we could get a useless sample, or none at all. It's clear that Mars is a very heterogeneous planet. We need to explore and chemically analyze much more if it before we ever do a sample return mission. For the same amount of money we could send 15 robotic missions to run many of the same analyses we would do here on Earth. Robotics have gotten pretty sophisticated! The Phoenix mission, at a cost of about $400 million, totally changed our ideas of Mars' geochemistry.
I hear tell there are still discoveries being made through ongoing analysis of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions. What makes you think analysis of returned Mars samples would stop with what we could do in the next 15 robotic missions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if it would be possible to have these collection rovers at multiple sites, each with a return vehicle that would all rendezvous with and transfer their samples to a single (or couple) return-to-Earth spacecraft.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShouldn't that be tested in Antarctica's "Dry Valleys" where there is no snow, water, and is nearly Martian cold?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for correcting my presumptions and clarifying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA total waste of time and money. Nasa will not be on the Moon, as another country will already have been doing all that for many years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisennui...this about mars not the moon...
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