Curiosity set for daring yet measly drive; see the ‘wheel wiggle’
In what may be the first test drive that doesn’t require bringing the vehicle back to the dealership, NASA’s Curiosity on Wednesday will take a little spin on Mars. It’s only a few measly feet, but the test drive will go a long way toward making sure the rover’s parts are in working order for its Martian mission.
A sequence of images from NASA (above) illustrate the “wheel wiggle” -- among the health checks the rover has been undergoing since landing on the Red Planet on Aug. 5.
“On Wednesday the plan is to drive forward, turn right and back into a location currently in front, and left, of the rover,” Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project manager for Mars Curiosity, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Tuesday.
“This is a driving and steering test that will end in a location where we have a clear view of the ground. ... The entire drive is only a few rover lengths.”
Four wheels on the vehicle have been checked this week. The vehicle also was able to stretch out its long robotic arm after the multimillion-mile journey. The arm, not quite 7 feet long, and all five of its joints were extended, then folded away again. The arm comes with a tool kit.
“The kit includes a drill for rocks, scoop for soil collection, hand-lens camera, X-ray spectrometer and a brush,” Vasavada said, so Curiosity can get busy looking at what clues the soil holds to the mystery of whether life may have existed on ancient Mars.
One wind sensor on the rover is out of commission, as The Times reported Tuesday. Engineers say the sensor was sending back garbled data. Bits of rocky debris kicked up during landing may have damaged some sensitive, exposed circuit boards.
Scientists at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were excited over a recent test of Curiosity’s laser, which obliterated a fist-sized rock. The laser aimed more than 1 million watts of power in 5-billionths-of-a-second pulses at the rock dubbed Coronation.
NASA says the pulses of energy “excites atoms,” which form ionized, glowing plasma. The ChemCam aboard the rover then analyzes light given off by that plasma and gleans information about the rock’s elements.
Also, scientists are celebrating the selection of InSight, a new landing mission to Mars set for launch in March 2016.
The aim with InSight is to look at the core of the planet. Scientists talk of assessing the planet’s “vital signs” -- “taking its temperature” and “measuring its reflexes.” (See the video below.)
As The Times’ Amina Khan reported:
“InSight — short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — will use a lander to understand how Mars, Earth and other rocky planets were formed in the early days of the solar system.”
Embedded video from
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology
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