[meteorite-list] NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Drills at 'Telegraph Peak'

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 17:48:54 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201502270148.t1R1ms1A014995_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4492

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Drills at 'Telegraph Peak'
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 25, 2015

-- "Telegraph Peak" is third drilling site in outcrop at base of Mount
Sharp

-- Choice of drilling site motivated by chemistry measurements

-- Mission heading through "Artist's Drive" and higher on Mount Sharp

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its drill on Tuesday, Feb. 24 to collect
sample powder from inside a rock target called "Telegraph Peak." The target
sits in the upper portion of "Pahrump Hills," an outcrop the mission has
been investigating for five months.

The Pahrump Hills campaign previously drilled at two other sites. The
outcrop is an exposure of bedrock that forms the basal layer of Mount
Sharp. Curiosity's extended mission, which began last year after a two-year
prime mission, is examing layers of this mountain that are expected to
hold records of how ancient wet environments on Mars evolved into drier
environments.

The rover team is planning to drive Curiosity away from Pahrump Hills
in coming days, exiting through a narrow valley called "Artist's Drive,"
which will lead the rover along a strategically planned route higher on
the basal layer of Mount Sharp.

The Telegraph Peak site was selected after the team discussed the large
set of physical and chemical measurements acquired throughout the campaign.
In particular, measurements of the chemistry of the Telegraph Peak site,
using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the rover's arm,
motivated selection of this target for drilling before the departure from
Pahrump Hills.

Compared to the chemistry of rocks and soils that Curiosity assessed before
reaching Mount Sharp, the rocks of Pahrump Hills are relatively enriched
in the element silicon in proportion to the amounts of the elements aluminum
and magnesium. The latest drilling site exhibits that characteristic even
more strongly than the earlier two, which were lower in the outcrop.

"When you graph the ratios of silica to magnesium and silica to aluminum,
'Telegraph Peak' is toward the end of the range we've seen," said Curiosity
co-investigator Doug Ming, of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. "It's
what you would expect if there has been some acidic leaching. We want
to see what minerals are present where we found this chemistry."

The rock-powder sample from Telegraph Peak goes to the rover's internal
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument for identification of the
minerals. After that analysis, the team may also choose to deliver sample
material to Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of laboratory
instruments.

The sample-collection drilling at Telegraph Peak was the first in Curiosity's
30 months on Mars to be conducted without a preliminary "mini drill" test
of the rock's suitability for drilling. The team judged full-depth drilling
to be safe for the drill based on similarities of the target to the previous
Pahrump Hills targets. The rover used a low-percussion-level drilling
technique that it first used on the previous drilling target, "Mojave
2."

Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp after two years of examining
other sites inside Gale Crater and driving toward the mountain at the
crater's center.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient
habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover's APXS was
provided by the Canadian Space Agency. CheMin was developed by NASA Ames
Research Center, Moffett Air Force Base, California, and SAM was developed
by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity


Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2015-069
Received on Thu 26 Feb 2015 08:48:54 PM PST