The existence of water will determine whether the Mars sustained the microbiological organism in past or in any other form in the present. Drilling so deep into a Red Planet rock is a complex and unprecedented maneuver, which is accomplished in a stepwise and precise manner.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover used its arm-mounted drill to bore a hole 0.63 inches (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) deep in a section of sedimentary bedrock on Friday (Feb. 8). The activity paves the way for the first-ever analysis of fresh Martian subsurface material and provides the last major checkout of the robot's gear and instruments, researchers said.
The sample collected will be processed over the next few days. The rover will clean itself from any material or residue that may remain from Earth before transferring any powder to the analytical instruments on the rover's body.
"Building a tool to interact forcefully with unpredictable rocks on Mars required an ambitious development and testing program," said JPL's Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system. "To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock on Earth."
Roller landed on mars on August 5 last year, which is intended to determine the microbial life on our neighbor planet. Along with its 10 science instruments and 17 cameras, the rover's drill is considered key to this quest. The team has finally accomplished the complex part and now the analysis is the only part going to play a vital role.
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