The scientists and engineers of NASA's Curiosity rover mission have
selected the first driving destination for their one-ton, six-wheeled
mobile Mars laboratory. The target area, named Glenelg, is a natural
intersection of three kinds of terrain. The choice was described by
Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute
of Technology during a media teleconference on Aug. 17.
"With such a great landing spot in Gale Crater, we literally had every
degree of the compass to choose from for our first drive," Grotzinger
said. "We had a bunch of strong contenders. It is the kind of dilemma
planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the
first drilling for a rock sample on Mars. That first drilling will be a
huge moment in the history of Mars exploration."
The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 1,300 feet (400 meters)
east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain
intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the
first drilling target.
"We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out
onto the open road," Grotzinger said. "Our challenge is there is no GPS
on Mars, so we have a roomful of rover-driver engineers providing our
turn-by-turn navigation for us."
Prior to the rover's trip to Glenelg, the team in charge of Curiosity's
Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is planning to give their
mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough
checkout. On Saturday night, Aug. 18, ChemCam is expected to "zap" its
first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time
such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.
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| Mars Rover Self-Portrait August 17, 2012 |
"Rock N165 looks like your typical Mars rock, about three inches wide.
It's about 10 feet away," said Roger Wiens, principal investigator of
the ChemCam instrument from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico. "We are going to hit it with 14 millijoules of energy 30 times
in 10 seconds. It is not only going to be an excellent test of our
system, it should be pretty cool too."
Mission engineers are devoting more time to planning the first roll of
Curiosity. In the coming days, the rover will exercise each of its four
steerable (front and back) wheels, turning each of them side-to-side
before ending up with each wheel pointing straight ahead. On a later
day, the rover will drive forward about one rover-length (10 feet, or 3
meters), turn 90 degrees, and then kick into reverse for about 7 feet (2
meters).
"There will be a lot of important firsts that will be taking place for
Curiosity over the next few weeks, but the first motion of its wheels,
the first time our roving laboratory on Mars does some actual roving,
that will be something special," said Michael Watkins, mission manager
for Curiosity from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
SOURCE and IMAGE CREDIT: NASA
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