NASA’s Curiosity Rover Got Its Drill Stuck on a Rock. Here’s How They Freed It
Key takeaways
- On April 25, Curiosity drilled into a rock nicknamed “Atacama” to collect a sample.
- Engineers initially tried to remove the rock by vibrating the drill, to no avail.
- This story originally appeared in WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.
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The Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August 2012.Photograph: Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story While it has enabled many exciting discoveries, the Curiosity Rover has also encountered its share of setbacks. The latest left NASA engineers speechless.
On April 25, Curiosity drilled into a rock nicknamed “Atacama” to collect a sample. When the rover retracted the robotic arm after drilling, the entire rock unexpectedly lifted off the Martian surface—all 28.6 pounds of it. While other Curiosity drilling operations have caused cracks or breaks in the upper layers of Martian rocks during the rover's nearly 14-year mission, this is the first time one has remained stuck to the sleeve that surrounds the drill's rotating tip.
As the space agency itself recounts, it was the black-and-white obstacle-detection cameras mounted on the front of the rover's chassis that captured this peculiar “accident” in a sequence of images that allowed engineers to get to work immediately to free it, moving its robotic arm and operating the drill repeatedly over several days.