No Thanksgiving Break for Curiosity’s Engineering at Work

Post-Drive View on Curiosity's Sol 102, JPL image PIA16447

While many of us were giving thanks with our families, the Curiosity rover continued its adventure in the “Red Planet”. The main goal for the team now is to keep on moving to explore other parts of the planet, after several weeks of scooping soil samples at one location. Curiosity drove 6.2 feet to get close to the rock called "Rocknest 3." Using the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) the rover took two 10-minute APXS readings of data about the chemical elements in the rock. The next destination was "Point Lake."! The team of the mission in Mars decided this was the perfect time to use Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) from Point Lake to examine possible routes and targets to the east. As the rover moves, the team will make a decision on which rock their next drilling project would take place. In this drilling, the mission is to collect samples of powder from rock interiors.

As the rover moves around the planet, there is one main component that will make a tremendous impact in the rock chosen to drill. The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the arm of the rover will determine the chemical elements in the rock and the team will tell if the rock has been examined before and examine the interiors of the rocks following brushing.

Don’t you want to know how this APXS works? It is about the size and shape of a Rubik's cube. It may seem as if this small tool is not capable of much. On the contrary, the APXS has a sensor will be able to gather data day and night. It will take two to three hours to analyze a sample to determine what elements it is made of, including trace elements. The APXS located in the robotic arm will move in close to a sample and blast it with alpha particles and X-rays. By doing this, the scientist are able to study the properties of the energy emitted from the sample in response.

Something that many of us may be wondering is whether there is/was water on Mars. This tool in the rover has already helped scientist in the past provide evidence that there might have been water in the planet. Continuing to explore the rocks with the APX only brings the team even closer to new discoveries.

“This engineering drawing shows the five devices that make up the turret at the end of the arm on NASA's Curiosity rover. These include: the drill for acquiring powdered samples from interiors of rocks; the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS); the sample processing subsystem named Collection and Handling for Interior Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA), which includes a scoop that can scoop up lose dirt from the Martian surface; the Dust Removal Tool (DRT) and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).” (Tools at Curiosity's 'Fingertips') Retrieved form nasa.gov references:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20121120.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16145.html
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/spectrometers/apxs/

Engineering Group: Irene Isabel Vargas, Andy Alfonso, William Valverde and Albert Zapata.

The Strongest Arm on Mars

The robotic arm on NASA's Curiosity rover should set a new standard for robotic operations on Mars — and it could revolutionize robotics on Earth as well.

The robotic arm cleared the last of its commissioning tests last Thursday, November 8th 2012, and is now ready for duty on Gale Crater. Just based on metrics alone, Curiosity's arm is in a class by itself: It's twice as long as the arm that was installed on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and is tipped with a turnable, twistable turret that weighs 30 kilograms (66 pounds).

That turret is bristling with instruments — including an X-ray spectrometer, a fine-resolution camera, a scoop and some sifters, a dust-sweeping brush, and a percussive drill that can smash rock to bits for analysis in the rover's onboard chemistry labs. The arm is designed to press that drill against the rock with a force of 300 Newton (67 pounds), which is more of a push than a construction worker generally uses for overhead drilling on Earth.

It's a formidable machine, which has to be managed with care from a distance of 175 million miles (282 million kilometers). That's what the colleagues on the robotic-arm team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been working to avoid: They tested all the sequences the arm is expected to run in advance, in simulations and a robotic test bed. Now the same tests have been run on the actual rover. There were no surprises on Earth, and no surprises so far on Mars, either.

engineering group authors: Andy Alfonso, Michael Molina and Nicola Delloca

The components of a unique masterpiece in the Red Planet

When looking at the engineering side of the Curiosity, a question comes into mind: What makes it so special? In other words, what are the components and properties of Curiosity that sets it apart from previous models? Let’s start with a curious fact: Curiosity is the size of a Mini-Cooper automobile. It is a lot bigger than previous models, for it has to carry more scientific instruments. A total of 11 scientific instruments are planned and 17 cameras would be used.
One of the most important instruments in the curiosity is its 7 feet robotic arm. It is used to drill, brush and take magnifying images of rocks. The drill enters the rock and collects the powder that is made. It is then transferred to the rover to investigate what minerals are present, as well as the whole composition of the rock. The minerals found in this rock powder will help scientists at NASA determine the environmental conditions of Mars at an earlier period.
The main instruments on board the Curiosity are:

• The Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) , which identifies and measures the minerals on Mars, such as olivine, pyroxenes, hematite, goethite, and magnetite.

• The Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM), which is in charge of finding compounds of the element of carbon, like methane, and other lighter elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen which are essential to life.

• The MastCam, on top of the curiosity, has “a big eye” that shoots a laser at rocks to create sparks. The color of those sparks is measured to know what these rocks and soils are made out of. The MastCam can also take high definitions videos at 10 frames per second. This and other cameras are used to have a clear 360º view of the surroundings of the Curiosity.

• The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), which was given by the Spanish government to the NASA, is a mechanism that measures and provides “daily and seasonal reports” on air and ground temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction, and ultraviolet radiation.

• The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) has received the responsibility to identify every high energy radiation on the Martian surface. This will help us equip future astronauts, so that they will be protected from harmful radiation. Curiosity’s components and scientific instruments provide us with the confidence that the composition of the red planet won’t be a mystery for much longer.

Engineering Group: William Valverde, Andy Alfonso, Irene Isabel Vargas, Albert Zapata



Resources: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mardi/

Mars rover Curiosity set to last at least fourteen years researching and exploring Mars

The Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, landed on Mars on August 6, 2012. All thanks to the modern power supply of Curiosity, the MMRTG, it is planned to keep exploring the Martian landscape well into 2026, if not longer. The MMRTG (short for Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric generator) is very reliable and gives the rover a constant supply of energy for its electronic instruments. The concept behind the MMRTG is very simple: inside is a radioactive material, plutonium-238 dioxide, which emits heat. The heat produced is captured by a special machine which uses the heat for creating electricity. Any excess heat is used for warming the rest of the rover from freezing any of the instruments due to the cold, -63 °C (-81 °F) , atmosphere of Mars. Typically, a mars rover is outfitted with solar panels for its main source of power, such as Spirit and Opportunity. The solar panels would provide a good amount of power during daylight hours, but it would receive no power during the night and dust would decrease its overall output. This made solar panels very inconsistent and communication with the rovers limited, unlike the MMRTG on Curiosity, which provides electricity to the rover at all times. However, the one drawback of the MMRTG is that it will output a little less power over the years, since the radioactive material inside is constantly decaying. On the upside, it is expected to provide sufficient power for at least the next fourteen years. So expect to hear about Curiosity’s accomplishments as it keeps exploring the cold landscapes of Mars day and night.

Sources: http://nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/MMRTG.pdf http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_rover_energy.html

Engineering group: Michael Molina, Marina Malaga, Nicolas Delloca, Andy Alfonso