Curiosity Mission Update

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Chealsye Bowley

Curiosity entered “safe mode” during the late evening on March 16. The rover put itself in the precautionary standby status when a command file failed a size-check by the rover’s protective software. NASA engineers quickly diagnosed the software issue, deleted the file that was causing the size error, and Curiosity was back to active status by March 19.

Now that the rover has exited safe mode, Curiosity is expected to begin science observations any day now. The mission’s science observations have been on hold since February 27 after a memory glitch on the A-side computer. Controllers commanded a swap from the A-side computer to the B-side computer. The A-side is now available as a backup for the rover, if needed.

The computer glitches Curiosity has recently experienced may seem worrisome, but NASA anticipates technological glitches and prepares accordingly. Missions have built-in redundancies in order to prevent an error from crippling a mission before completion, such as Curiosity’s two computers. Another great example of technological foresight is the Voyager I and II missions that were launched in 1977. These missions have experienced numerous instrument and computer issues, but remain healthy and continue to communicate with NASA thanks to such redundancies. On the Voyager spacecraft there are three different computer types and two of each. In 2010, Voyager II experienced scientific data format problems. Thanks to multiple computers engineers were able to put Voyager II in “engineering mode” and investigate the problem. The problem turned out to be a flipped bit on one of Voyager II’s computers. Engineers successfully reset the computer and Voyager II resumed processing data correctly. Learn more about Voyager and the data glitch of 2010.

Additionally, Curiosity’s commanders plan to suspend communication from April 4 to May 1 when Mars will be passing nearly directly behind the sun. This suspension of communication is a precaution against interference by the sun that could corrupt a command sent to Curiosity. During this time Curiosity will be able to continue science observations. Read more about this in a status update from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity to investigate Mars’ Gale Crater. The project has found the conditions in the crater were once favorable for microbal life. If you want to support similar endeavors for scientific discovery, tell Congress to double NASA’s funding.

You can follow Curiosity’s mission on Facebook and Twitter and find out more information about Curiosity from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

First Results from Curiosity’s SAM Instrument

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Kyle Sullivan

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory held a press conference today where they announced the first results of MSL Curiosity’s Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) instrument. Organic compounds have been detected by the SAM instrument, they reported, but the science team are yet to determine whether or not the compounds are native to Mars or if they hitched a ride on Curiosity from Earth. The famed rover is currently resting at a place scientists are calling Rocknest, which is a few hundred meters from Bradbury Landing, where Curiosity landed on August 6, 2012.

Curiosity’s SAM instrument – an oven that cooks tiny samples and studies the gases that result – has indicated the presence of a small percentage of water and lesser amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen and sulfur dioxide found in some “garden variety” Martian soil samples at Rocknest. Also involved in the detections was the presence of perchlorate, which was detected by a previous mission (NASA’s Phoenix lander). Of the water, the science team has found that the presence of a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio that is five times greater than that of Earth – meaning water released from the Rocknest samples is “heavier” than the water in Earth’s oceans. This deuterium ratio will be helpful in determining how Mars wound up with such a thin atmosphere and perhaps whether or not standing water existed at Curiosity’s landing site.

Considering the organic compound detections, the science team has determined that the SAM instrument, one of the more important instruments at Curiosity’s disposal, is working perfectly fine. In fact, they tested SAM several times in order to put to rest the fear that something might have been wrong with it. Curiosity’s project scientist, John Grotzinger, told reporters:

“The instrument, SAM, is working perfectly well. It has made this detection of organic compounds, simple organic compounds…we just simply don’t know if they’re indigenous to Mars or not. And so, it’s going to take us some time to work through that.”

When pressed for details on how to determine if the detected organic compounds were Martian or not, several team members said they were going to take it one step at a time. Several protocols were yet to be followed that would help rule out the uncertaintly surrounding the origin of the supposed organic compounds.

The scientists went on to say that they were proud of Curiosity’s development and that the “3 months of terror or tension,” where the team slowly and carefully tests each of Curiosity’s components for the first time, is almost over. Grotzinger and fellow scientists hope to test out the drill, one of the last mechanisms to be checked, sometime before the holidays. After that, Curiosity will be ready to head to Mount Sharp at the center of Gale Crater.

Mars Soil Sample May Reveal Earthshaking News

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Curtiss Thompson

NASA scientists working on the Mars rover mission may have discovered some earthshaking news. A recent soil sample taken by Curiosity is yielding some very exciting results that NASA is remaining very tight-lipped about.

NASA scientists are currently reviewing data they are receiving from a recent soil sample taken by the Mars rover’s SAM instrument. The SAM instrument is a collection of tools used by the Mars rover to determine the composition of soil and atmospheric samples collected on the Martian surface.

John Grotzinger, the principal investigator behind the Mars rover mission, isn’t releasing any details on the discovery just yet, as they want to be sure of their findings before they go public. When asked about the results they are receiving, Grotzinger told NPR, “This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good.”

It may be a few weeks before we get an official announcement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, according to Grotzinger. His team is cautious not to release their findings too early because they almost ended up prematurely announcing the discovery of methane on Mars the last time they received exciting data like this.

When they analyzed an air sample using SAM, it returned evidence of methane. However, before they made an announcement they wanted to confirm that the sample they tested didn’t contain air that Curiosity brought with it from Earth. Upon conducting the test again, SAM showed no indication of methane in the Martian atmosphere.

If their findings turn out to be true, the news couldn’t come at a better time for NASA, as the space agency is facing potential budget cuts as we approach the fiscal cliff. With appropriators in Congress negotiating a compromise to put the United States’ fiscal house in order, a major discovery on Mars would be just what the space agency needs to demonstrate the value of investments in space exploration.

MSL Curiosity and the NASA Budget

Posted on August 13, 2012 by John Zeller

The public gather in Times Square to watch the Curiosity Landing

By now, you have heard of the Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” Rover and its spectacularly successful landing on the planet Mars. This mission is a huge win for NASA, not just in terms of a successful interplanetary engineering feat, but in terms of public outreach. Consider just how many people decided to watch the landing. According to Ustream, 3.2 million people tuned in to the live streaming JPL and NASA HD channels to watch Curiosity coverage, a full 500,000 online concurrently at the time of landing. Additionally, people watching the news on television at the time of the Curiosity landing were considerable: 803,000 Fox viewers watched, 426,000 people tuned into CNN, 365,000 viewers on MSNBC and 109,000 on CNBC according to Neilson television ratings (Mashable). Also, consider the other venues where people were able to take part:

The official Twitter account for the Curiosity rover, @MarsCuriosity, currently has 969,261 followers. At the time of the landing, Curiosity was trending in popularity (take a look at this review of #Curiosity chatter as well as the Twitter Blog’s account of the Curiosity landing).
Also, on Facebook, Curiosity has 268,000 fans. On Google+, #MSL trended at the number two spot for August 6 2012. Curiosity predictably trended as a Google search term, according to Google Trends.
There were several #NASASocials (formally #NASATweetups) at various NASA facilities across the nation. Penny4NASA’s own John Zeller watched from a #NASASocial hosted at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and famous NASA fan Pillow Astronaut attended a gathering at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California where 7000 people apparently gathered to watch the landing.
In all, there were 120+ Curiosity landing parties around the United States and the globe, including several at other NASA centers. The Planetary Society hosted a crowd of 15,000 at Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena, California to watch the landing. According to NBC, around 1,000 people gathered in Times Square to watch the landing on one of the giant screens.
During the landing broadcast, NASA websites actually went down and Ustream video actually froze up due to excessive website interaction. This is something that has happened for the last few rover landings (Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity), proving just how the Red Planet continues to excite Earthlings.

So, the Curiosity landing was popular. Very popular. It seems the entire internet knows about it now. So much so that there are already memes floating around celebrating the Curiosity Landing, However, despite this popularity – despite this fever pitch of happiness for the advancement of humanity into the unknown – the budget for the Mars Exploration program, and NASA in general, is being cut in the new Fiscal year 2013 budget proposed by the Obama administration. Continue reading →

Curiosity Rover Deck in Full Resolution

Posted on August 10, 2012 by John Zeller

This magnificent black & white picture shows the deck of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity from the view of the rover’s Navigation cameras. At top left is the back of the rover, and to the left two of the rover’s right side wheels can be seen. Gale Crater’s rim is visible as a lighter color strip in the background. The deck of the MSL Curiosity is also littered with bits of gravel about 1 centimeter in size, though NASA has confirmed that this will not effect performance in any way. This image is actually 8 images in total, each of which is 1,024 pixels by 1,024 pixels. Because this image is stitched together out of 8 others, there are seams visible in some places, though an effort was made to minimize seams (click the image for the hi-res version). Oh, and that little AR tag you see on the deck of the MSL Curiosity? Well, apparently there are plans in the future for it to be used via smart phone to obtain additional information about the mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech