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Subscribe to RSSIn preparation for its first drive on the Red Planet, the Curiosity rover moved its wheels around to check steering motions, and tested its robotic arm. NASA's Mike Watkins discusses how the tests went.
More than two weeks after landing in Mars' Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity rover has wiggled its wheels to warm up for its first honest-to-goodness drive, just hours from now.
Mission manager Mike Watkins said that the wiggle tests, which involved twisting the rover's four turnable wheels to the left and to the right in place, were done successfully overnight.
"We wanted to test the steering, because otherwise we would be driving in whatever direction we landed in," Watkins explained today during a teleconference that originated from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Everything's in fine shape, and that means we are 'go' for our first test drive tomorrow."
Watkins said the commands will be sent up tonight for a drive of just a few yards (meters), incorporating a turn to the right and a backing-up maneuver. That initial movement should occur "in the middle of the night our time" and last about a half-hour, he said.
The six-wheeled rover has a versatile steering system, with two front and two rear wheels that can be independently twisted so much that the car-sized, 1-ton vehicle pirouettes in place. The two middle wheels can push as well, but they aren't built for turning. Each wheel measures 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter, which is about the size of an automotive tire.
Successful driving is the key to Curiosity's two-year, $2.5 billion mission, because its ultimate goal is to reach the flanks of a 3-mile-high mountain within the crater, known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp. That target is about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) away, Watkins said. Once the rover is fully into its drive mode, it's expected to trek up to the length of a football field (100 meters) in a day.
Curiosity's first destination is an intersection of three geological formations about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the landing site, known as Glenelg. The rover is due to spend the next couple of months checking out that area, and then it'll turn its wheels toward Mount Sharp. That's where scientists expect to read the geological history of Mars over the course of billions of years, as recorded in the layers of rock going up the mountainside. Those readings could show how habitable the planet might have been at different epochs.
NASA has scheduled a televised briefing at 2:30 p.m. ET (11:30 a.m. PT) Wednesday, presumably to share the results of the first driving commands.
Instruments checked out
Watkins said the Curiosity team has been doing checkouts on the rover's 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) robotic arm as well as the 10 scientific instruments on board. "We've gotten through all of those successfully and on schedule," he said.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
A picture from the navigation camera system on NASA's Curiosity rover shows the robotic arm extended outward, with an instrument-laden "turret" that weighs about 66 pounds. The turret's drill assembly is pointed toward the camera. The patterns on the turret are "fiducials" that are used to calibrate distances.
JPL's Louise Jandura, the mission's sample system chief, said the first tests to flex the robotic arm were successful, but additional tests will be done over the next few weeks to make sure the arm motions are fine-tuned for Martian gravity. The turret at the end of the arm weighs 66 pounds (30 kilograms), or as much as a small child, so the mechanics of moving the arm will be different on the Red Planet than they were during testing on Earth. The gravitational pull on the Martian surface is only 38 percent of what it is on Earth.
"That gravity does matter," Jandura said.
Only one significant snag has been discovered to date, said Ashwin Vasavada, the mission's deputy project scientist. Two of the three circuit boards on one of the booms for the rover's weather station — known formally as the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station, or REMS — are out of action, apparently due to some broken wires, he said.
Vasavada speculated that the exposed boards were hit by small rocks that were thrown up onto the rover's deck when it was lowered to the surface by a rocket-powered sky crane. "Putting two and two together, you could come up with an idea that some of these rocks may have fallen on the circuit boards and damaged the wires," he told reporters.
If the circuitry is permanently damaged, that would degrade the boom's wind-sensing capability, Vasavada said. However, the circuit boards on a second wind-sensing boom appear to be fine, so it's not a total loss wind-wise. The REMS station is already sending back weather reports indicating that the conditions are typical for the late winter and early spring on Mars, with temperatures rising just above the freezing mark.
More rocks zapped
Vasavada also said the rover's laser-zapping ChemCam system is "working better than we hoped," based on the results of the past weekend's test firing. The laser took 30 quick target-practice shots at a fist-sized rock that was nicknamed "Coronation." The tiny flashes given off by the rock blasts were analyzed by a spectrometer on the rover to determine the mineral composition of the rock.
"It appears to be, as we thought, a typical Martian basalt," Vasavada said.
He said ChemCam took some additional test shots at rocks in one of the sky-crane blast zones, known as Goulburn Scour, but Vasavada said the results of those tests were not yet available.
Tests are also going well for an instrument that detects hydrogen by shooting neutrons at the ground, said Igor Mitrofanov, principal investigator for the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons experiment, or DAN. The readings show a pattern suggesting that Mars is "really a different" place from Earth.
Back in 2008, NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander detected water ice right under the spacecraft, but Mitrofanov said "we have not predicted any subsurface ice here," in the vicinity of the Curiosity rover. Rather, the team expects to find the signature of hydrated minerals, which would suggest that water flowed through Gale Crater in ancient times.
More about Mars:
- Mars Curiosity rover flexes arm for first time
- Curiosity shoots at rock with its laser
- Britney Spears to Mars rover: What's new?
- Rover reveals more of Martian peak
- Mars rover team faces the masses
- Mars fans make viral video
- Panoramas add spin to Mars
- Mars rover survives its 'brain transplant'
- Mars orbiter gets a long look at Curiosity rover
- Reprogrammed rover getting ready to roll
- Obama tells rover team: Watch out for Martians
- Search for life to shape future Mars missions
- Why the rover has such a dinky camera and computer
- How to build your own Mars rover with Lego blocks
- The Puff on Mars: Photo mystery solved!
- Panorama reveals a colorful Mars
- NBC video: Panorama featured on 'Nightly News'
- Curiosity reveals a Martian Mojave
- Tour the Martian Mojave in 3-D
- Flying saucer spotted over Mars
- First 3-D pictures sent by Curiosity
- Orbital photo spots rover and its trash
- Curiosity sends color snapshot from Mars
- Rover video looks down on Mars during landing
- Mars orbiter spots rover in midair
- NASA's Mohawk Guy marvels at his fame
- Curiosity rover scores touchdown on Mars
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Curiosity has its first case of "happy tail". Good Curiosity, good boy!!!!!!
You know, it just occurred to me it would be cool if Curiosity had a microphone and we could hear the sounds of Mars.
Maybe pick up the calls of the GIANT SAND WORMS!
There will be worms.
Can't wait for things to really get rolling, this will be better than reading all the political crap to come. Go NASA go!!!
Such a GREAT accomplishment as to put a vehicle like this on another planet! And yet, for $2.5 billion, they couldn't afford to house all the delicate circuit boards in a protective housing? Seems like there is always a common sense mistake like this on every project that could have been avoided with just a little fore thought. I know hind sights 20-20, but come on... even on earth we know to protect circuit boards from damage. Oh well, at least the other systems seem to be good to go. Can't wait to see the findings!
I can't believe Circuit boards & wires were left Exposed! DUH!
What are you talking about? Everything is shielded from radiation.
Are we set up to test Mars' magnetic field? I'm sure that there is a simple compass and field strength meter in Curiosity's "Swiss Knife." It would certainly tell us a lot about the planet's core --- up close for a change.
Mars apparently had a magnetic field early in its life as indicated by magnetized minerals in its crust. Most likely this field was generated by a molten core that gradually cooled down because of Mar's small size and mass.
Mars has no magnetic field, so it is completely unprotected from solar radiation.
slowly and gently Curiosity reaches out to the eager mounds of nature knowing the hot blast of desire is imminent...
ALL that money spent, and we get Black&White photos.
They're coming, be patient.
16 cameras and you complain about the nav cams? They are black and white because artificial intellegent software scans the images for obstructions and greyscale works better for that.
oh my god!! it wiggled its wheels!! Don't you think that if you were to spend millions of dollars on a probe on Mars, you would test how it drives BEFORE you sent it to Mars? This is not news.
THIS JUST IN ..I'M HAVING PASTA FOR DINNER! THAT'S NEWS.
Thye did test in out on Earth, now testing out to make sure if survived the trip. Be patient.
C. Francis: Jeezus.. are you serious?? they have to test things before actually using them!.. it's in MARS.. it's not like they can just go over there and hit 'reset' or unplug it and plug it back in if it doesnt work.. a simple wire or rock in the wrong place can make the whole thing unusable.. think about it.
So they just assume that everyting works after the vibration of liftoff and months of solar radfiation and then landing with a thud, and punch the accelerator? Wow, what a sad post.
Mega waste of money. Better to spend it here on Earth fixing Earth's problems than trying to figure out if life existed somewhere else. Who cares? Mars is a dead planet with no magnetic field and no hope of holding an atmosphere so why spend time there when the Moon is about the same and a heckuva a lot closer and cheaper to visit. If you want to find life try the moons of Jupiter or Saturn instead of a dead planet!
Spend it on what. The gubment already wastes billions of dollars every day. Just wanted to let you know that tthe planets and their moons farther out are also dead, and cold
Maybe education, so you could spell "government".
...and the US taxpayers paid how many billions of dollars so the Mars rover could "...wiggle its wheels..."!!!
Youz got a problem wit dat, grandad?
Good point grandpa9...
PS - don't let the snot nosed crumbsnatchers bother you. They can't tell the difference between a rover track and the skidmarks in their diapers, lol.
grandpa - I bet there were people like you in Spain who were saying, spend money and a big fancy boat trip so Columbus could fall off the edge of the earth. You don't know what you don't know until you try.
grampa doesnt like change, or learning apparantly.
It cost $2.5 billion, over 8 years. So about $312 million per year.
Roughly $1 per person per year.
(For comparison, US GDP is $14.5 TRILLION per year, total yearly tax revenue, about $2.5 TRILLION per year, military expenditures, about $700 billion per year, Medicare and Medicaid, about $90 billion per year.)
You know, even if the mission did no science at all, and all we got for the price was the entertainment value of pretty pictures, that's a pretty good deal.
Broken wires and circuits from rocks thrown in landing, huh? Huh! You'd think all those rocket scientists would have been smart enough to cover the wiring and circuitboards. We can do that for our $20,000 cars! I mean, even kids toys are built indestructible. Ah well..government project, lowest bidder and all that . Gotta save a huge chunk o'cash for the CEO of whatever company built this POS, and his (her) minions and butt lickers, I guess.
Billions are never enough in this society'o'greed. And the taxpayers pay and pay.
Tom - do you know why they left the circuit boards unprotected? I don't but I would not be too fast to judge until the question is clearly answered.
What an awful waste of money!! What did the Moon give us? Lets spend that 2.5 Billion on killing more Terrorist.
It might be worth it if the damn thing had a blown hemi in it and could smoke all four wheels in 4th gear!
The moon? I'll name just one out of a few dozen: databases.
The Apollo Project was a massive leap forward in computer technology. Before Apollo, there was no such a thing as a database. Without databases, the entire business revolution from the 70s to today (supply chains, worker efficiency, etc) would not have happened. The mini-computer and PC would not have happened. (To say nothing about the Internet!)
So please, continue to complain about a "waste" of money on science while we bleed out that much in 2 weeks in Afghanistan or 1 week of entitlement spending.
Fantastic! Way to go Curiosity! I just hope you don't come across any cats. Remember that Curisity killed the cat. LOL
.... test drive in the middle of the night? I have to stay up all night again? Also you complainers need to read about this mission and equipment before making stupid comments.
"The readings show a pattern suggesting that Mars is "really a different" place from Earth."
all right guys, quit spoon feeding the masses, surely the circuit boards were not "exposed"...perhaps a connecting panel or such, but WE know already that a radiation from the south atlantic anomaly (bermuda triangle I suppose, case in point) damaged well protected circuit boards on an air force satellite. We know the RTG, and all the other key parts on oscy are wrapped up like a kitten in a mitten....I posist that if you write for a tenth grade audience instead of a sixth grade audience you might actually increase your readership....just a hypothesis. (your spell checker does not even recognize the word posist....sad, sad).
Nice video, I For one rarely watch the videos since they are such a pain to archive, far from impossible, just a pain. I can only guess the laser is taking random pot shots in hopes of finding a little serendipity....if not, why not.
This is 2012, we should have imperial probe droids thru-out the solar system. 2.5 billion is a lot of money, perhaps if we had more of them, the cost per mission could be drawn down with overlapping labour. In fact, as our space economy takes off (cough, cough) some of these systems should naturally decrease in cost. Meanwhile, a fair number of people have jobs in a field that benefits man in kind, not in self. Try and teach that lesson to the millions of children everywhere that are watching "oscy" with awe. Be ye proud americans, yea, but better still, be ye proud earthlings. This earth is YOUR worth. I look forward to seeing this buggy roll towards it's first target sampling area. I wish it was faster, and it would be neat if the sky crane was incorporated into the buggy, to make long distance hops in quarter minute increments, but I will definitely settle for all the science it can muster. Meanwhile, the reporters may as well milk it, I would hate it if they ignored it all together....heck I can't even buy a good scientific american mag in my town any more...and we got a sshe university (theyv'e turned it into a paper mill, if you understand that sarcasm, most colleges went that way a long time ago, it's all about the money now).
and the trolls? hey, go ahead and say what you gotta say, curse the pres, the guberment, their campaign allies, their frenemies on the other side of the aisle, the elephants or the fish or whatever....you got that right and don't let some dim wit on a damn peanut gallery try and scare you away from your first amendment right...so boohoo to all your friggen pc'ers...take it to another country if you wanna step all over the constitution....dumbassses...I support this mission, and we need more AND a way to make them cheaper (starting with top saleries for one...even at newsvine we got disparity)....we need a lot less politics in big science, another way of saying that is to stand up and say, hey, mccain, how about that communist manifesto?? shout em down if you got too...if you see a contractor or a president or a boss or a co worker doing something that hurts the project, call out on it!!!.....thats the big difference between pre and post mcarthy america, fear. I say cut the TSA and cancel the DHS....put it all into a moon base....the taliban? I was first to say they needed culled, back when they were blasting away at six thousand year old statues for religious reasons, I wouldn't tolerate their crap today....when they hit and run, go get em, no matter where they run too, into china, go get em, into pakistan, go get em.....we call that standing up.
Don't worry , I don't like romney one damn bit, he spent too much money on a try and try again loser platform for ME to not smell a crook. He wants something, and it ain't on his front and center public list.
Sooooo....Get on with it oscy, there is a world awaiten and we are all just as curious as you.........
Another vine for the mental midgets on Newsvine to come and complain about how wiggling wheels and black and white pictures are not worth the money spent on the rover...
Go play your 360 and let the rest of us bask in this latest scientific accomplishment without having to correct and inform you on stuff you should have already known about if you were really interested in this article. Like the fact that Mars is not next door to you house and landing on another planet is not like driving a car. Things can break on the way up, on the way over, and on the way down. Self-checks have to be made to make sure that the rover is good to go and not going to break down because of a loose screw or crack of something.
Although I guess if they cannot fix it with the rover itself the same outcome is achieved.
The other part is the expense. Building and fueling a miniature nuclear reactor is not cheep and neither is collecting the radiation hardened electronics to survive on Mars/in space. The reason for black and white pictures is because color takes up too much space. It would be pointless if Curiosity's memory banks (which are pretty small) were filled up by half a color image.
@article
Will be interesting to see what is discovered. Mars may hold some clues about our own planet if it indeed had liquid water on its surface at some point.
Its just depressing to see people not only wallow in ignorance and fear of things they don't understand, but to defend it as the best course for all. Unbelievable.
You put your left wheel out
You pull your left wheel in
You put your left wheel out and you shake it all about
You do the rover-pokie and you spin your mast around
That's what it's all about!
This has to be the most boring, do-nothing space mission in history.
Everyone wants instant satisfaction .... give it time, it was expected to be a slow start.
Va-room-a-zoom-zoom! Roger dodger!
Curiosity - the Speed Buggy of Mars.
That was a good cartoon, forgot about Speed Buggy
What's that rusty sign in the background? Oh, I see it says: Las Vegas 85 miles.