Curiosity's self portrait on Mars. (Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) After suffering more than a year with a broken drill, NASA’s 5-year-old Mars rover Curiosity is now collecting and analyzing samples once again. The drill sits at the end of Curiosity’s LeBron James-sized robotic arm and is vital for grabbing and dropping dirt into the spacecraft’s onboard laboratory. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) put many months of effort into hacking a new way to drill after the rover’s tool broke way back in December of 2016.
After testing their techniques on Earth, engineers saw their solution also works on Mars when they penetrated a couple inches into a Red Planet rock named “Duluth” in May. Engineers call the new technique “feed extended drilling.” It works by pushing the drill bit inches past the stabilizer bars that keep the rover steady. NASA says the new technique works more like a ...
