11th February 2013 NASA's Curiosity rover collects first Martian bedrock sample NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has used its onboard drill to obtain the first deep rock sample ever retrieved from the surface of another planet.
The fresh hole, about 0.63" (1.6 cm) wide and 2.5" (6.4 cm) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data beamed to Earth over the weekend. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyse powder collected by the drill. John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate: "The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars. This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America." For the next several days, ground controllers will command the rover's arm to carry out a series of steps to process the sample, ultimately delivering portions to the instruments inside. Within the sample-handling device, the powder will be vibrated over a sieve that filters out any particles larger than six-thousandths of an inch (150 microns) across. Small portions of the sieved sample will fall through ports on the rover deck into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. These instruments then will begin the much-anticipated detailed analysis. The rock Curiosity drilled is called "John Klein" in memory of a deputy project manager who died in 2011. Drilling for a sample is the latest new activity for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which is using the car-sized Curiosity rover to investigate whether Gale Crater once had conditions favourable for life.
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