When the Curiosity rover touched down on the Martian surface in 2012, it represented one of the most technologically challenging accomplishments in the history of space exploration. But even so, we shouldn't expect every part of the rover to work perfectly. Curiosity's drill, for instance, has been out of commission since 2016, although NASA is finally getting close to fixing it.

Here's the problem: In December of 2016, Curiosity's drill feed mechanism broke. The drill feed is designed to move the drill bit forward and backward, extending it into and retracting it from the Martian rocks. Without that mechanism, the drill can't do it work, and for the past year, Curiosity hasn't been able to do any drilling.

This is unfortunate, because the drill is one of Curiosity's most valuable experiments. Curiosity can use the drill to collect samples from inside Martian rocks, which is one of the best ways to determine the history of Mars and whether life ever existed there. That's why the Curiosity team has been working hard to get the drill operational again.

The interim method that the rovers' operators came up with is to use the drill arm itself to move the bit back and forth. This way, they can operate the drill without the feed mechanism, which will probably never be repaired. But drilling this new way would mean operating the drill without using stabilizers, which is risky. The Curiosity team has spent the past few months running tests on the replica Curiosity stored at NASA, and they think they've come up with a way to safely operate the drill without stabilizers.

The team will use the force and torque sensors built into the drill arm to ensure that the drill doesn't experience any sideways forces while the drill is operating. Using Curiosity's Earth twin, the team has managed to successfully drill and collect samples using this technique. They've also found a way to deposit those samples in the rover's analysis instruments, which also previously required the feed mechanism.

The next step is to test their solution on the real Curiosity rover on Mars, to see if it works as well there as on Earth. The Curiosity team is understandably taking this slow, but with any luck the rover will start drilling rocks again soon. Then the team can get back to the science.

Source: NASA

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io