The Next Mars Rover
Department:
Mars
Teaser:
"NASA's Curiosity rover - part of the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission - has been outfitted with an onboard X-Ray instrument that will help scientists determine if Mars was once habitable for life. The mission is currently scheduled for launch in late 2011."
Link:
Source:
http://www.astrobio.net Download time: Jun 29 2010 12:06 PM ET
NASA's Curiosity rover, coming together for a late 2011 launch to Mars, has a newly installed component: a key onboard X-ray instrument for helping the mission achieve its goals. Researchers will use Curiosity in an intriguing area of Mars to search for modern or ancient habitable environments, including any that may have also been favorable for preserving clues about life and environment.
The team assembling and testing Curiosity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., fastened the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument inside the rover body on June 15. CheMin will identify the minerals in samples of powdered rock or soil that the rover's robotic arm will deliver to an input funnel. "Minerals give us a record of what the environment was like at the time they were formed," said the principal investigator for CheMin, David Blake of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Temperature, pressure, and the chemical ingredients present -- including water -- determine what minerals form and how they are altered.
The instrument uses X-ray diffraction, a first for a mission to Mars and a more definitive method for identifying minerals than any instrument on previous missions.…
See http://www.astrobio.net for links to further info.
Also see NASA JPL.
