Author Topic: NASA's Curiosity Rover Hammers Into 1st Mars Rock  (Read 739 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Buster's Uncle

  • With community service, I
  • Ascend
  • *
  • Posts: 49647
  • €709
  • View Inventory
  • Send /Gift
  • Because there are times when people just need a cute puppy  Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur  A WONDERFUL concept, Unity - & a 1-way trip that cost 400 trillion & 40 yrs.  
  • AC2 is my instrument, my heart, as I play my song.
  • Planet tales writer Smilie Artist Custom Faction Modder AC2 Wiki contributor Downloads Contributor
    • View Profile
    • My Custom Factions
    • Awards
NASA's Curiosity Rover Hammers Into 1st Mars Rock
« on: February 05, 2013, 07:07:44 pm »
Quote
NASA's Curiosity Rover Hammers Into 1st Mars Rock
By Mike Wall | SPACE.com – 23 hrs ago.. .

 
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has pounded into a Red Planet rock with its drill for the first time, bringing the 1-ton robot a big step closer to initiating its first full-bore drilling operations.
 
The Curiosity rover hammered the rock using the arm-mounted drill's percussive action over the weekend, completing another test along the path toward spinning the bit and biting into rock for the first time.
 
"We tapped this rock on Mars with our drill. Keep it classy everyone," Curiosity flight director Bobak Ferdowsi — who gained fame as "Mohawk Guy" during the rover's nail-biting landing on the night of Aug. 5, 2012 — wrote in a Twitter post Sunday (Feb. 3), sharing a photo of the pounded rock.
 


Curiosity's drill can bore 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) into Martian rock, deeper than any rover has been able to go before. Using the drill and its associated systems is a complex operation, so the mission team has been building up slowly to the first drilling activity on the Red Planet.
 
Last week, Curiosity performed some "pre-load" tests, pressing down on a rock with its drill in several different places to see if the amount of force applied matches predictions.
 
The six-wheeled robot has also been carefully evaluating its target rock, which is part of an outcrop the mission team has named "John Klein," after a former Curiosity deputy project manager who died in 2011.
 
Curiosity's main goal is to determine if its Gale Crater landing site could ever have supported microbial life. Along with the rover's 10 science instruments and 17 cameras, the drill is viewed as key in this quest, as it allows Curiosity to dig deep into Martian rocks for potential signs of past habitability.
 
The mission team wants to test the drill out on a target with scientific value, and John Klein seems to qualify. The outcrop shows many signs of past exposure to liquid water, including light-colored mineral veins that were apparently deposited by flowing water long ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/nasas-curiosity-rover-hammers-1st-mars-rock-192003957.html

 

* User

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

Select language:

* Community poll

SMAC v.4 SMAX v.2 (or previous versions)
-=-
24 (7%)
XP Compatibility patch
-=-
9 (2%)
Gog version for Windows
-=-
103 (32%)
Scient (unofficial) patch
-=-
40 (12%)
Kyrub's latest patch
-=-
14 (4%)
Yitzi's latest patch
-=-
89 (28%)
AC for Mac
-=-
3 (0%)
AC for Linux
-=-
6 (1%)
Gog version for Mac
-=-
10 (3%)
No patch
-=-
16 (5%)
Total Members Voted: 314
AC2 Wiki Logo
-click pic for wik-

* Random quote

The Mind Worms are the natural defenses of the living Planet?the white blood cells, if you will. In a world in which unassimilated thought represents danger, the Mind Worm seeks out concentrations of sentient mental energy and destroys them, ruthlessly and efficiently.
~Commissioner Pravin Lal 'Mind Worm, Mind Worm'

* Select your theme

*
Templates: 5: index (default), PortaMx/Mainindex (default), PortaMx/Frames (default), Display (default), GenericControls (default).
Sub templates: 8: init, html_above, body_above, portamx_above, main, portamx_below, body_below, html_below.
Language files: 4: index+Modifications.english (default), TopicRating/.english (default), PortaMx/PortaMx.english (default), OharaYTEmbed.english (default).
Style sheets: 0: .
Files included: 45 - 1228KB. (show)
Queries used: 36.

[Show Queries]