- \n
- MSL Forum Section<\/li>\n
- Mars Forum Section<\/li>\n
- L2 Exploration Section<\/li>\n
- Click here to Join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
After a two weeks of ground testing, Curiosity and its systems were put to the test for the first time on August 19, 2012 when the rover used its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to laser zap a rock, nicknamed \u201cCoronation,\u201d located near the rover\u2019s landing site.<\/p>\n
During the test, Curiosity\u2019s ChemCam instrument hit \u201cCoronation\u201d rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10 second period. Each pulse delivered more than three million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.<\/p>\n
The energy from the lasers excited atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma, which was recorded with a telescope and analyzed with three spectrometers for information about what elements were present inside the rock.<\/p>\n
For other articles about Mars and MSL, click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/mars\/<\/p>\n
Rocket building kits
<\/path>Spaceflight <\/path>Rocket launch schedules <\/path>\n (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n
The initial use of the laser on Mars served as target practice for characterizing the Chem\/Cam instrument while also providing additional value to researchers on whether the elemental composition changed as the laser pulses progressed.<\/p>\n
![\"MSL](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z81.jpg\" "\\"MSL")
Now Curiosity in pressing on with another milestone, via the debut use of its drill, while at its current location in a small depression named Yellowknife Bay.<\/p>\nHammering away on a slab of rock on the floor of Gale Crater, before and after images showed the drill worked as planned. This test on the rock \u2013 named John Klein in honor of a recently deceased NASA engineer \u2013 is a precursor to the expected drilling of test holes.<\/p>\n
The end goal is to collect samples from the drilling, before delivering them to the suite of scientific instruments onboard the Rover. The results will be beamed back to Earth for scientists on the ground to evaluate.<\/p>\n
MSL To Crewed Missions:<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s JPL team have proven themselves as the world leaders in sending spacecraft to Mars, a planet that continues to be more than a challenge for nations such as the Russians. However, NASA is still decades away from sending humans to the Red Planet, with the Agency only providing a notional target of the mid 2030s.<\/p>\n
See also:
\nTaking aim on Phobos \u2013 NASA outline Flexible Path precursor to man on Mars
\nSLS Exploration Roadmap evaluations provide clues for human Mars missions
\nBoeing outlines technology for crewed Mars missions<\/p>\n![\"MSL](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z75.jpg\" "\\"MSL")
Regardless, Curiosity is gathering vital science to facilitate that possibility, via instrumentation that is specifically designed to collate data that will help humans set foot on Mars.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019ve already gotten a little bit of a taste of that with Curiosity\u2019s results, (such as) the RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector) results,\u201d noted Dr. Grunsfeld. \u201cWe\u2019re very afraid of space radiation for a good reason. With RAD on Curiosity, we\u2019re able to analyze a tissue equivalent dose, as if there was a person in there.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow on the surface of Mars, we\u2019re starting to get the information the Life Sciences team will be able to use to assess the hazards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those hazards for a crew on Mars include a big solar particle event \u2013 such as a solar flare. However, the galactic cosmic rays is a constant threat that scientists need to learn more about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident we\u2019ll get through that, but a mission to Mars is going to be hugely risky no matter what,\u201d added the five time Shuttle astronaut. \u201cSo we have to assess, but until we get data and make the measurements it is an unknown. (However,) we\u2019ve made a first step there.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"EDL](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z71.jpg\" "\\"EDL")
MSL\u2019s Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) also provided useful data for any potential crewed mission to Mars, with Dr. Grunsfeld citing the heat shield and precision landing as good examples.<\/p>\n\u201cThe scale of the heat shield for the MSL system is on the scale of a human system, comparable to the Orion heat shield \u2013 not that Orion would go into the atmosphere of Mars, but we\u2019re starting to learn about things at scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking down the road, there\u2019s a whole list of topics in technology and precision landing. You would like future crews to say \u2018we\u2019re going to land right next to the cargo ship that I landed to previously\u2019. If you\u2019re many kilometers away, that\u2019s not right next to it. You want to be meters away.<\/p>\n
![\"Mars](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z61.jpg\" "\\"Mars")
\u201cSome of the things that the Space Technology Program are looking at would advance us towards that \u2013 from EDL systems, to simple things (not unlike how) the advancement of navigation on Earth came from a better clock. The same thing applies in space, such as atomic clocks, which can precisely time the entry into Mars atmosphere.<\/p>\n\u201cThe active guidance system \u2013 which was a brand new feature on MSL \u2013 can navigate and guide you to a precision landing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sustainability on Mars is also likely to be a key requirement for future crews to the Red Planet, with Dr. Grunsfeld citing the path towards In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).<\/p>\n
![\"Setting](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z72.jpg\" "\\"Setting")
\u201cDown the road, I\u2019d love for us to start to look at ISRU. How do we use the things were learning about on Mars?\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cOne of the exciting things \u2013 which we saw on Viking, but got confirmation via the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) results on MSL \u2013 is there\u2019s a fair amount of nitrogen in the Mars atmosphere. Well nitrogen is something that\u2019s very important for humans and without that we might need to take it with us, so that\u2019s a resource we could use (in situ).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen high water content. We could heat that out and use the water, even better if we land near ice. So there\u2019s a lot of neat stuff looking to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Boeing's](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Z93.jpg\" "\\"Boeing's")
With NASA\u2019s Exploration Roadmap still lacking official release \u2013 despite lots of notional mission plans, the latest of which was created by Boeing \u2013 an actual mission plan for human flights to Mars remains unscripted.<\/p>\nHowever, Dr. Grunsfeld \u2013 who was speaking during the announcement of a new MSL rover mission to Mars at the end of this decade \u2013 is excited about the synergy between the Rover\u2019s science gathering and future crewed missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we think of the 2030s as the potential for human exploration of Mars, I think this 2020 rover \u2013 and the other things we might be able to do in the 2020s \u2013 will provide a synergistic collaboration between science and human space flight,\u201d added the SMD Associate Administrator.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of cool things we can do with advancements, both in science and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Images: Via NASA, Boeing and L2 content from L2\u2019s SLS specific L2 section, which includes, presentations, videos, graphics and internal \u2013 interactive with actual SLS engineers \u2013 updates on the SLS and HLV, available on no other site. Other image via NASA).<\/p>\n
(L2 is \u2013 as it has been for the past several years \u2013 providing full exclusive SLS and Exploration Planning coverage. To join L2, click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n
(Don\u2019t forget to share this article with your friends by using the new social buttons directly below):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As NASA\u2019s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) continues to impress during its mission on the Red Planet \u2013 marked by another milestone via the use of its drill for the first time \u2013 NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld believes Curiosity is providing vital information ahead of potential crewed missions to Mars. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[367,4217],"class_list":["post-39917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-mars","tag-msl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}