JAKARTA – Marking 11 years of Curiosity belonging to the American Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Mars, the rover is currently investigating a location dubbed Jau.
Jau is a stop on Curiosity’s journey to the foot of the Red Planet’s Mount Sharp, which has dozens of impact craters.
Mount Sharp itself is a 5 kilometer high mountain that was covered in lakes and streams billions of years ago.
Each mountain layer formed in a different era of ancient Mars climate, and the higher Curiosity is, the more scientists learn about how the planet’s landscape changed over time.
The path up the mountain over the past few months required the most difficult ascent Curiosity has ever made.
The explorer robot has to bulldoze steeper inclines and more risky terrain. Even so, Curiosity is still safe against the three challenges posed by this slope.
The slopes have a steep 23-degree incline, slippery sand, and rock the size of a cruiser wheel. But, he got through it.
“If you’ve ever tried to ride a sand dune on a beach and that’s basically what we did. You know it’s hard, but there are also boulders there,” said Curiosity rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Amy Hale. in a statement, quoted Monday, August 7.
It is known, Curiosity is indeed far away on Mars but he is controlled by the mission team on Earth, including by Hale. They don’t operate the rover in real time, instructions are sent to Mars the night before, and data returns to Earth only after the robot has finished its job.
The mission team worked closely with scientists to figure out where to point Curiosity, what images to take, and which targets to study using instruments on a 2-meter-tall robotic arm.
However, the mission team is also always on the lookout for danger. They had to write orders to avoid the spiky rocks and minimize the damage to Curiosity’s wheels.
Luckily, Curiosity was never in danger of climbing to Jau. Along the way, the explorer finds himself in both scenarios on several occasions.
“We were basically playing error bingo. Every day that we come in, we find that we are guilty of one reason or another,” said Curiosity strategic route planning lead at JPL, Dane Schoelen.
Instead of continuing to struggle with their original course, Schoelen and company made a sideways detour, aiming for a spot roughly 150 meters away where the climb was less steep.
Schoelen’s planners relied on images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to get a rough idea of the terrain, but images taken from space can’t tell exactly how steep the slopes are or whether there are large boulders there.
The detour will add another few weeks to the Jau, except the terrain hides more surprises. If so, the detour was probably in vain, and the mission team would have to keep looking for another route up Mount Sharp.
“It’s an amazing feeling to finally get over the ridge and see that amazing view,” said Schoelen.
“I can see images of Mars all day long, so I can really feel the landscape. I often feel like I’m standing right next to Curiosity, looking back at how far it has climbed.”
Since the arduous ascent, the mission team and Curiosity scientists have completed an investigation of the Jau crater cluster.
Clusters are very common on Mars and can form when a meteor breaks up in the planet’s atmosphere or when fragments are ejected by a large, more distant meteoroid impact.
Scientists wanted to understand how relatively soft rocks in salt-enriched terrain affect the way craters form and change over time.
Despite all that, Curiosity will soon set off again to explore new, higher areas of Mount Sharp.
Tags: mars nasa space outer space technology
2023-08-07 14:12:00
#NASAs #Curiosity #rover #successfully #clears #sharp #climb #Mars #arriving #Mount #Sharp
