NASA Archives

August 24, 2012December 23, 2015 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA Looking at Dozens of Advanced Technology Concepts

The Contour Crafting Simulation Plan for Lunar Settlement Infrastructure Build-Up, a NIAC-supported concept.
Rendering courtesy of Behnaz Farahi and Connor Wingfield

All the media focus surrounding the recent landing of NASA’S rover Curiosity has brought increased attention to space technology. Just in time to bask in the limelight, NASA has delivered a tech enthusiast’s dream in terms of astounding new concepts that have recently been funded. They range in scope from nanosatellite technology to the exploration under the ice of Europa.

NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts program announced on August 1st that it has funded 28 studies for the upcoming year. Eighteen of the studies are considered “Phase 1” projects, while ten are considered “Phase 2.”

Phase 1 projects are the new, innovative ideas that NASA received during its call for proposals. Some other conepts include an air purification system with no moving parts, and a system that could use in situ lunar regolith to autonomously build concrete structures on the Moon, as pictured above. Each of the winning proposals, from a pool of hundreds, will receive $100,000 to pursue the idea further. Each team will report back to NIAC at the end of the year with a report on their progress toward the goals of the project that were laid out in the proposal.

Phase 2 projects are pulled from the successful proposals from last year that reapplied for another grant. These projects have already made it through their Phase 1 development and will receive $500,000 for continuing research into the concept. These projects include such technologies as fusion-driven rockets and printable space-craft, and could move on to commercial or mission development if they successfully complete their Phase 2 goals. Other parts of NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist will help support those goals, as the NIAC only supports project up through the completion of Phase 2.

The NIAC ties nicely into NASA’s new focus on the commercial side of space flight. Many of the concepts funded by the program could serve as the basis for viable commercial businesses, such as asteroid mining and robotic construction. But most importantly, NASA is still funding the risky, game-changing projects that could drastically transform the way people live their every-day lives. Tech enthusiasts everywhere should be happy with that concept.

You can see here for a list of the proposals. We’ll try to feature some of these in future articles.

August 24, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Multiple Dinosaur Tracks Confirmed at NASA Center

Fossilized nodosaur footprints discovered at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. (NASA/GSFC/Rebecca Roth)

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, where some of the world’s most advanced research in space technology is being performed on a daily basis, paleontologists have discovered ancient evidence of dinosaurs on the Center’s wooded campus — at least two, possibly a mother and child, crossed that way between 112 and 110 million years ago and left their muddy footprints as proof.

The tracks of two nodosaurs — short, stocky and heavily-armored herbivorous dinosaurs — have been confirmed by dinosaur tracker Ray Stanford and USGS emeritus paleontologist Dr. Robert Weems. The second track is a smaller version of the first.

The first, larger footprint was announced by Stanford on August 17. When Dr. Weems was called in to verify, the smaller print was discovered within the first, evidence that they were made around the same time and leading researchers to suggest it may have been a mother-and-child pair.

Dinosaur tracker Ray Stanford describes the cretaceous-era nodosaur track he found on the Goddard Space Flight Center campus with Dr. Robert Weems, emeritus paleontologist for the USGS who verified his discovery. (NASA/GSFC/Rebecca Roth)

“It looks to be a manus (front foot) print of a much smaller dinosaur than the first one, but it looks to be the same type,” Weems said of the second track. “If the one that came through was a female, it may have had one or more young ones following along. If you’ve seen a dog or cat walking with its young, they kind of sniff around and may not go in the same direction, but they end up in the same place.”

It’s thought that the nodosaurs were moving quickly since the tracks don’t show strong imprints of the animals’ heels. Still, the ruddy Cretaceous-era mud preserved their brief passage well — even as millions of years went by.

“This was a large, armored dinosaur,” Stanford said. “Think of it as a four-footed tank. It was quite heavy, there’s a quite a ridge or push-up here. Subsequently the sand was bound together by iron-oxide or hematite, so it gave us a nice preservation, almost like concrete.”

The next steps will be to have the site analyzed to determine whether further excavation is called for, and possibly to extract and preserve the existing footprints.

“Space scientists may walk along here, and they’re walking exactly where this big, bungling heavy armored dinosaur walked, maybe 110 to 112 million years ago.”

– Ray Stanford

XCOR to Move Operations Near Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center is getting a new neighbor: XCOR Aerospace announced they intend to establish an operational base in Florida, and also hope to build a manufacturing and assembly center for the XCOR Lynx Mark II suborbital reusable launch vehicles.

“Looking over the KSC Visitor Complex grounds and seeing the history of U.S. human spaceflight and realizing that soon XCOR will be a part of the fabric of the Space Coast is very exciting to me personally and our company” said Jeff Greason, XCOR CEO. “When we started the company back in 1999, we could only have dreamt about the possibility of flying the person on the street or the citizen scientist to space from such an important place.”

KSC and NASA officials — as well as local officials dealing with the job losses from the end of the shuttle program — were thrilled with the news. XCOR’s new operations in Florida could bring new work for highly skilled former space shuttle employees.

“The next era in space exploration is under way, and the Space Coast of Florida is ground zero in the Obama administration’s effort to launch Americans from U.S. soil and create good jobs that support an economy built to last,” said NASA Chief of Staff David Radzanowski. “The region continues to be a key strategic location for companies, like XCOR, who want to build on our nation’s great legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

“We look forward to discussing with XCOR Aerospace and other space companies how Kennedy’s unique capabilities may be made available for use,” said Kennedy’s Center Director Bob Cabana. “This is further evidence that the Space Coast is preparing for the next era of space exploration.”

XCOR made the announcement in Florida, with the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex as a backdrop.

The company hopes to fly the Lynx suborbital vehicle from Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, the Cecil Field Spaceport, or other suitable Florida locations by 2014. And if all goes well, they will also start building facilities to produce parts for the Lynx Mark II models and eventually production of Lynx vehicles and other XCOR products, “should market demand materialize and the emerging commercial space industry maintain its current momentum,” XCOR said in a press release.

They estimate direct job creation through late 2018 at just over 150.

“As chair of Space Florida, this is the type of investment the Space Florida Board has been working on to attract high-tech, high-wage jobs to Florida,” said Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll. “We are very pleased to welcome XCOR to Florida as a prime example of how utilizing Florida’s existing infrastructure and leveraging our talented workforce capabilities can attract new and growing business to our state.”

NASA said they are working with XCOR and other commercial space companies so that KSC could be host to many kinds of spacecraft and rockets in the future.

“Negotiations are taking place with other commercial users for Orbiter Processing Facility Bays 1 and 2, as well as with potential commercial users of the Launch Complex 39 launch pads,” NASA said in a statement. “These and other partnerships will cement Kennedy as a true multiuser spaceport as envisioned by our nation’s leadership.”

Lead image: XCOR’s Lynx suborbital vehicle. Credit: XCOR

August 21, 2012December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Chasing Atlantis: An Upcoming Film about the Shuttle’s Legacy

Shuttle Atlantis as it enters the Vehicle Assembly Building (Ryan Horan.)

Take five shuttle fans and a once-in-a-lifetime experience, mix in some artistic creativity, and you will understand the enthusiasm and love behind the Chasing Atlantis film production.

Five Canadians made the trek to Florida to watch the final shuttle launch last year. They are wrapping up filming and interviews — which included astronauts and sci-fi stars — to discuss the legacy of the program.

They plan to release Chasing Atlantis in November. Team member Matthew Cimone talked to Universe Today by e-mail about why they made the journey in the first place.

UT: What is your connection to space?

There were five of us in total. Matthew Cimone, Paul Muzzin, Melanie Godecki, Chris Bourque and Rebecca Mead. We ranged from total space geeks and sci-fi junkies to those who were simply interested in being part of an adventurous road trip.

Continue reading “Chasing Atlantis: An Upcoming Film about the Shuttle’s Legacy”

August 21, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Mars Lander Wins Out for 2016 Mission Over Titan Boat and Comet Hopper

Artist rendition of NASA’s Mars InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Lander. InSight is based on the proven Phoenix Mars spacecraft and lander design with state-of-the-art avionics from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) missions. Credit: JPL/NASA

A new mission to Mars will launch in 2016, NASA announced on Monday, a lander named InSight that will probe Mars’ interior to determine whether it has a solid or liquid core, if it actually does have fault lines and plate tectonics, and figure out the Red Planet’s basic internal structure. All of this will not only help scientists understand Mars, but also to gain insight on how terrestrial planets form and evolve.

“We’re very confident that this will produce exciting science,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

InSight won out for this round of NASA’s lowest cost missions, the Discovery missions, over two other very enticing proposals: the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would have sent a floating high-tech buoy to land in a methane sea on Saturn’s moon Titan to study its composition and its interaction with the atmosphere; and Chopper was a proposed Comet Hopper mission that would put a lander on comet 46P/Wirtanen where it would study the comet’s composition, and with thrusters it could essentially “hop” to different locations on the comet.

While all three missions in the competition were compelling, NASA only has enough money, unfortunately, for one Discovery mission in 2016. And, Grunsfeld said, InSight was the best choice of a project that could stay at or even under the Discovery program’s $425 million cost cap, excluding launch costs, and keep its tight schedule to launch in 2016.

“Our Discovery Program enables scientists to use innovative approaches to answering fundamental questions about our Solar System in the lowest cost mission category,” said Grunsfeld. “InSight will get to the ‘core’ of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we’ve been able to make from orbit or the surface.”

Asked during a press briefing if NASA is becoming, too Mars-centric, Grunsfeld replied, “We still have a broad portfolio of missions, with Juno recently launching, OSIRIS-Rex launching in 2016, the Dawn mission going on and New Horizons heading to Pluto, so I think we’ve shown very broad diversity in past selections.”

Grunsfeld was also asked if the Curiosity rover’s recent successful landing had any influence on the choice, but Grunsfeld said the decision was actually made before the Mars Science Laboratory rover touched down.

“We’re really clueless on the interior of Mars,” said NASA’s Planetary Science Chief, Jim Green. “And this is really our first attempt to understand what terrestrial bodies go through in their early evolution.”

Insight’s body is based on the Phoenix lander, which landed in Mars’ polar region in 2008, and will use solar panels for power instead of a radioisotope power system, which saves on costs. But the instrumentation for InSight is completely different than Phoenix, and it involves an international mix.

InSight will carry four instruments: JPL will supply a geodetic instrument to determine the planet’s rotation axis and a robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on the Martian surface. The French space agency CNES is leading an international consortium that is building an instrument to measure seismic waves traveling through the planet’s interior. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is building a subsurface heat probe to measure the flow of heat from the interior.

And don’t expect any great color photos of Mars’ surface from InSight. It will only have a black and white context camera, and Green said they don’t expect any changes in that regard, as the mission will need to stay on budget and on time.

InSight will land in a flat, equatorial, flat region in September 2016 to begin a two-year scientific mission. “The Phoenix lander went to polar regions and we knew it was going to be a short lifetime,” said Grunsfeld. “Because InSight goes to an equatorial region where the environment is relatively more benign, it has the potential to last longer, so that is exciting.”

Green touched on other potential areas of study for InSight, such as determining if there are “Marsquakes,” and whether the landslides seen by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera are due to activity on the planet like quakes or from melting.

“Methane is being potentially being produced from Mars’ interior,” Green said, “and that touches upon the potential life question. But that is a potentially active process a-bioticaly, in interactions between water, minerals and magma. And this mission could determine if Mars has a hot interior magma, and why it doesn’t generate a magnetic field. What we are seeing are some of the different perspectives of Mars being an active planet or not, and these instruments will clearly be able to do this.”

Sources: NASA, press briefing

August 20, 2012December 23, 2015 by John Williams

Seeking the Moon’s Rare Atmosphere

Using the dim light of distant stars reflecting off of the surface of the Moon, scientists using a spectrometer aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have found traces of the Moon’s tenuous atmosphere. But don’t expect to take off your protective spacesuit. The Moon’s atmosphere is made of helium.

“The question now becomes, does the helium originate from inside the Moon, for example, due to radioactive decay in rocks, or from an exterior source, such as the solar wind.” says Dr. Alan Stern, LAMP principal investigator and associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Scientists designed the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) spectrometer aboard LRO to map the lunar surface but the confirmation that helium surrounds Earth’s largest natural satellite was a bonus, Stern told Universe Today.

“LAMP was designed to simply do what we had not done in 40 years; to look closely at the surface of the Moon,” Stern said. “This really is a breakthrough, a capability discovery.”

LAMP’s findings support work done by the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, or LACE, that was left behind by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972. LAMP is designed to examine far ultraviolet emissions in the tenuous atmosphere above the Moon’s surface.

Some elements found on the Moon, such as carbon or sodium, can be studied from Earth. Helium is not one of these, Stern says. Helium only shows very weakly in the far ultraviolet part of the spectrum. The signature is too weak to be seen from the 250,000 miles separating the Moon from Earth. Earth’s ozone layer also absorbs ultraviolet radiation making detection from ground-based detectors impossible.

And with LAMP moving over the lunar surface, we can see more than we’d see with a simple lander, Stern said.

During its mission, LACE detected argon but so far only helium has been confirmed from LAMP’s spectrograph. Although, the noble gas argon is much fainter than helium to the spectrograph, LAMP will seek this and other gases as well.

John Williams is a science writer and owner of TerraZoom, a Colorado-based web development shop specializing in web mapping and online image zooms. He also writes the award-winning blog, StarryCritters, an interactive site devoted to looking at images from NASA’s Great Observatories and other sources in a different way. A former contributing editor for Final Frontier, his work has appeared in the Planetary Society Blog, Air & Space Smithsonian, Astronomy, Earth, MX Developer’s Journal, The Kansas City Star and many other newspapers and magazines.

August 20, 2012December 23, 2015 by John Williams

Look at the Size of that Thing! – A Close Look at Odysseus Crater

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Behold the battered terrain of the massive crater Odysseus in this new image from Cassini.

Check out the cassinified image of the fractured surface

When Voyager first imaged the huge Herschel Crater on Mimas, scientists could not help comparing the small and battered moon to the Death Star in George Lucas’ science-fiction adventure Star Wars. But Saturn’s moon Tethys is also home to a massive crater; the remains of an ancient impact that nearly destroyed the tiny moon. Odysseus Crater dominates the surface of Tethys covering two-thirds of the surface. The tiny moon is just 1062 kilometers, or 660 miles, across. Using information from Voyager and Cassini, scientists found that the heavily cratered and fractured moon is made up of mostly water ice with a small amount of rock.

Odysseus Crater takes up the entire left side of this image.

With the Sun over Cassini’s shoulder, the spacecraft took this image of the northern part of Odysseus June 28, 2012 while the spacecraft zipped along just 72,000 kilometers (45,000 miles) above Tethys. If you’re interested, the resolution of this image is about 430 meters (1,409 feet) per pixel; meaning that one pixel takes up 430 meters in the image.

August 20, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jenny Winder

Desert RATS Begin Simulated Asteroid Mission Today

Caption: Artist’s Concept, Space Exploration Vehicle Use Comparison. Credit: NASA

Conspiracy theories abound that the Apollo landings all took place on a film set in California, but today NASA’s Desert RATS team begins a mission to asteroid Itokawa. They will land, rove and even undertake spacewalks, without ever stepping foot out of their home base at Johnson Space Center in Texas. This is no hoax however, but a simulated mission to test out NASA’s audacious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

The Desert RATS have been testing robots and other tools that could be used on future exploration missions since 1997, (this is their 15th mission) usually doing analog missions out in the field. “Desert” refers to the Arizona desert, where a lot of the team’s activities take place and “RATS” stands for “Research and Technology Studies.”

However, since they are now testing out a zero-G visit to an asteroid, the team will use mockups inside JSC’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which offers a medley of tools and simulators that would be difficult to transport to a field test location.

For example, the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV) is designed to both rove across a planetary surface on a wheeled chassis or fly in space using advanced propulsion systems. Four crew members will take it in turns to live in and operate the simulator to explore the asteroid.

The MMSEV can be put on a sled on an air-bearing floor to simulate the moves that the crew might feel during a real mission. There will also be a 50-second delay in voice transmission, going each way to simulate the light-speed travel time between Earth and the asteroid.

The crew can also undertake spacewalks using ARGOS (Active Response Gravity Offload System) an overhead gantry crane system that simulates the reduced gravity environment. In reality nothing would stop astronauts from just floating off the surface but NASA is thinking about using jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets or spiderwebs to allow them to float just above the surface attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.

A team of scientists from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate will ensure proper scientific methods are applied to asteroid sample collection techniques throughout the 10 day mission.

The mission is slated to run until August 30th or 31st. Find out more here or follow the NASA Desert RATS team on Twitter

Second image caption: ARGOS can be used to make spacewalkers feel as though they weigh 1/6 of their weight, as they would on the moon, or 1/3, as on Mars. Photo credit: NASA

August 20, 2012December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Sweeping Panoramic Vista of Mount Sharp and Gale Crater from Curiosity

Image Caption: Panoramic Vista of Mount Sharp (at right) and Gale Crater from NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. Curiosity will eventually climb 3.4 mile high Mount Sharp in search of hydrated minerals. This colorized panoramic mosaic shows more than half of the landing site surrounding Curiosity in the distance to the visible peak of Mount Sharp and a portion of the stowed robotic arm (at left) and the shadow of the camera mast (center) in the foreground. The mosaic was assembled from new navigation camera (Navcam) images snapped by Curiosity on Sol 2 and Sol 12 and colorized based on Mastcam imagery from Curiosity. Image stitching and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. See black and white version below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

At last the Curiosity mega rover is beaming back the first higher resolution panoramic images that many of us have longed to see – a complete view to the visible summit of towering Mount Sharp, the mountain she will scale, surrounded by the sweeping vistas of the tall eroded rim of Gale Crater, her touchdown site barely 2 weeks ago.

See our panoramic mosaics above and below incorporating the best available raw images to date. Curiosity’s stowed robotic arm and the shadow cast by the camera mast are visible in the foreground.

The new images from Curiosity’s mast mounted navigation cameras (Navcam) show the huge mountains peak to as far up as the rover can see from her vantage point some 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the base of the 18,000 foot (5.5 km) high Mount Sharp which is taller than Mount Rainier, the tallest peak in the contiguous United States.

By stitching together the newly received full resolution Navcam images from Sols 2 and 12, we (Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo) have created a panoramic mosaic showing the breathtaking expanse to the top of Mount Sharp combined with the perspective of Gale Crater from the rover’s eye view on the crater’s gravelly surface.

Image Caption: Panoramic Vista of Mount Sharp (at right) and Gale Crater from NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. Curiosity will eventually climb 3.4 mile high Mount Sharp in search of hydrated minerals. This panoramic mosaic shows more than half of the landing site surrounding Curiosity in the distance to the peak of Mount Sharp and a portion of the stowed robotic arm (at left) and the shadow of the camera mast (center) in the foreground. The mosaic was assembled from new navigation camera (Navcam) images snapped by Curiosity on Sol 2 and Sol 12. Image stitching and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo – www.kenkremer.com

In coming weeks, Curiosity will take aim at Mount Sharp with the pair of high resolution Mastcam cameras (34 mm and 100) mounted on the rover’s mast and eventually provide much clearer images to the peak resulting in the most spectacular pictures imaginable of the mysterious mountain that holds the mother lode of hydrated mineral deposits that the robot was sent to investigate by NASA. So far the Mastcam cameras have only imaged the lower reaches of Mount Sharp.

The nuclear powered, car sized Curiosity rover was specifically engineered to accomplish a pinpoint landing inside the 96 mile (154 km) wide Gale Crater beside Mount Sharp so she could scale the mountain and take soil and rock samples of the clays and hydrated sulfated minerals that scientists believe formed in liquid water that flowed billions of years ago.

Mount Sharp is a gigantic mound that covers the entire central portion of Gale Crater and learning how it formed is one of the many mysteries researchers seek to unveil with the highly sophisticated 1 ton robot.

John Grotzinger, the project scientist for NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover, says that the hydrated minerals are all located in about the first 400 meters or so of Mount Sharp’s vertical elevation, based on spectral data collected by NASA and ESA spacecraft orbiting Mars. He says Curiosity will spend about a year traversing and investigating targets on the crater floor before reaching the foothills of Mount Sharp.

Curiosity will eventually spend years climbing Mount Sharp in the valleys between the 1 to 3 story tall mesas and buttes at the giant mountain’s base and lower elevations in search of sedimentary layers of the clay and hydrated sulfate mineral deposits.

The powerful ChemCam laser that Curiosity successfully test fired today will be absolutely key to finding the best targets for detailed analysis by her 10 state of the art science instruments.

The mission goal is to ascertain whether the Red Planet was ever capable of supporting microbial life, past or present and to search for the signs of life in the form of organic molecules during the 2 year primary mission phase.

Ken Kremer

Image Caption: Gale Crater and Mount Sharp from orbit with Curiosity landing site ellipse

August 20, 2012December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Blasts 1st Mars Rock with Powerful Laser Zapper

Image Caption: PewPew !! – First Laser Zapped rock on Mars. This composite image, with magnified insets, depicts the first laser test by the Chemistry and Camera, or ChemCam, instrument aboard NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. The composite incorporates a Navigation Camera image taken prior to the test, with insets taken by the camera in ChemCam. The circular insert highlights the rock before the laser test. The square inset is further magnified and processed to show the difference between images taken before and after the laser interrogation of the fist-sized rock, called “Coronation.” It is the first rock on any extraterrestrial planet to be investigated with such a laser test. ChemCam inaugurated use of its laser when it used the beam to investigate Coronation during Curiosity’s 13th day after landing. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP

NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully blasted a Mars rock with a powerful laser beam, for the first time in history, today Aug. 19, inaugurating a revolutionary new era in planetary science with a new type of instrument that will deliver bountiful discoveries. The fist sized Martian rock zapped during the maiden laser target practice shots was appropriately dubbed “Coronation”.

The ChemCam instrument mounted at the top of Curiosity’s mast fired a total of 30 one-million watt pulses over a 10 second period at the 3 inch wide rock that vaporized a pinhead sized spot into an ionized, glowing plasma.

Each pulse lasted about five one-billionths of a second and was sufficient in energy to generate a spark of plasma to be observed with the ChemCam telescope and trio of spectrometers below deck in order to identify the elemental composition.

“Yes, I’ve got a laser beam attached to my head. I’m not ill tempered; I zapped a rock for science. PewPew,” tweeted Curiosity.

The NASA composite image above shows Coronation before and after the laser shots – watch out little Martians !

“We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!”

Image caption: This mosaic shows the first target Curiosity zapped with the ChemCam laser, before being blasted on Aug. 19. The 3 inch wide rock was provisionally named N165 and is now called “Coronation”. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/LANL

ChemCam recorded spectra from the laser-induced spark during all 30 pulses at 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light. The purpose of this test was target practice to make sure the laser could be precisely aimed and to characterize the instrument.

Ultimately the goal is use the laser to penetrate below the dusty surface and reveal the interior composition of the targeted rocks using the telescopic camera and spectrometers.

ChemCam, which stands for Chemistry and Camera, is a joint project between the US and France said Wiens at a news briefing on Aug. 17. “The science team is half French and half US.”

“It’s surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio,” said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. “It’s so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years.”

ChemCam is a remote sensing instrument and will get the most use of any of Curiosity’s instruments. It will be analyzing about 14,000 samples and help winnow down the targets and guide Curiosity to the most interesting samples for more detailed analysis, Wiens explained.

ChemCam uses a technique called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy that has precedent in determining the composition of targets in other extreme environments such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, but is unprecedented in interplanetary exploration.

NASA’s 1 ton mega rover Curiosity is the biggest and most complex robot ever sent to the surface of another planet, sporting a payload of 10 state of the art science instruments weighing 15 times more than any prior roving vehicle. Curiosity’s goal is to determine if Mars was ever capable of supporting microbial life, past or present and to search for the signs of life in the form of organic molecules during the 2 year primary mission phase.

Ken Kremer