One device, called CheMin, uses X-rays to analyze the mineral content of samples, while another, called SAM, uses ovens and solvents to analyze the detailed chemical make-up of the rock, including the presence of compounds containing carbon, one of the key chemical building blocks of life.īut Curiosity's longer stay at Rocknest speaks to the importance the science and engineering teams are placing on what mission manager Michael Watkins describes as "keystone" instruments. The cleaning itself is expected to take about a week and a half, and when it's over, the scoop will deliver a fourth sample to the rover's internal instruments. In normal operations, the strong vibrations are designed to move samples through sieves – with a final sample for analysis containing a tiny fraction of its original material. Once the scoop – a bit larger than a tablespoon – lifts the sand into CHIMRA, the device will vibrate by design to make sure the abrasive hits all the device's nooks and crannies. The approach has all the subtlety of maracas. "So we're taking the sand samples and effectively using it to rinse out mouths three times and then kind of spit out." It's also impossible for the rover's internal chemistry labs to avoid picking up on that residue in any samples CHIMRA delivers – contaminating the results.
"Even though we make this hardware super-squeaky clean, just by virtue of being on Earth you get this residual, oily film that is impossible to avoid," he says. Water is a key ingredient for organic life. Sharp, once hosted an environment that could have supported life.Ĭuriosity's science team already has started to build a strong case for the presence of significant quantities of water flowing – at least periodically – through the crater billions of years ago. The clean-out is in preparation for the rover's main mission: analyzing rocks and soils to see if Gale Crater and its central summit, Mt. After the scrubbing, NASA controllers plan to test CHIMRA's ability to feed samples collected by the scoop, and later Curiosity's drill, into two key instrument packages inside the rover’s chassis. It's a cleaning approach akin to a camper scouring the last meal's cookware with sand. Over the next two to three weeks, engineers will direct Curiosity to scoop sand from a stone-dotted mini-dune the team has dubbed Rocknest and to run it through sample-processing hardware dubbed CHIMRA. Two months and a just over half a mile into its mission, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is taking time out for tests of key tools for sampling the Martian soil – and, it turns out, for some badly needed scrubbing.
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