It’s tough being a robot trekking along the dry, arid terrain of another planet with no humans around. NASA’s Curiosity rover has spent the past 13 years drilling through samples on Mars, and one rock decided to strike back.
Curiosity recently got a rock stuck to its robotic arm while collecting samples from the Red Planet. NASA released a series of images that captured the grueling process of one robot trying to shake off a stubborn rock before finally breaking free.
Work hazard
NASA’s six-wheeled rover landed on Mars on August 5, 2012, and has been exploring the Red Planet ever since to gather clues on Mars’ potentially habitable past.
Curiosity’s robotic arm is equipped with a 6-pound (2.7 kilogram) drill designed to probe Martian rocks to collect and store samples. On August 25, the rover was drilling a sample from a rock nicknamed Atacama. This rock measures around 1.5 feet wide (0.4 meters) at its base, 6 inches thick (15 centimeters), and weighs roughly 28.6 pounds (13 kilograms), according to NASA.
As the rover retracted its arm, the entire rock came loose and was lifted out of the ground, becoming suspended by the fixed sleeve that surrounds the rotating drill bit.
The series of images were captured by the black-and-white hazard cameras on the front of Curiosity’s chassis and by navigation cameras on its mast and head. They show the moment of panic as the rock latches itself to the robot’s arm and Curiosity’s attempts to break free.
Try and try again
NASA had never faced this type of problem before. While drilling has caused some fracturing or separation of the upper layers of Martian rocks before, an entire rock has never latched onto a rover’s arm.
The team behind the mission initially tried vibrating the drill in hopes that would be enough to shake off the rock, but Atacama was not budging. On April 29, team members tried reorienting Curiosity’s robotic arm and vibrating the drill again. Again, the unforgiving rock remained attached.
It wasn’t until a few days of Curiosity’s drill being shackled by the Martian rock that the rover was finally free. On May 1, Curiosity’s mission team tilted the drill more, rotating, vibrating, and even spinning it. Team members thought they would have to perform this process several times before Atacama let go, but the rock surprisingly came off during the first round of maneuvers. Unfortunately, it fractured as it hit the ground.
That’s one sweeping win for Curiosity, and zero for the Martian rock.
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