The Mars Science Laboratory scooping campaign at Rocknest
Abstract
During its 57th through 100th martian days (sols) in Gale Crater, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover performed its first sample acquisition and processing of solid, granular sample. Samples were extracted from an aeolian sand deposit at a location called Rocknest. The Rocknest sampling site was identified to fit the prelaunch scientific and engineering requirements for this first time activity. Collected material was processed and delivered to two analytical instruments, Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), that both require delivery of a specific particle size range so that they can perform analyses to determine sample mineralogy and geochemistry. The choice of an aeolian sand deposit was based on requirements to ingest non-lithified, particulate sample for decontamination of the Sample Acquisition/Sample Processing and Handling (SA/SPaH) hardware, as well as to provide an opportunity to compare analytical results to aeolian deposits from elsewhere on the martian surface.
Additional Information
© 2015 Elsevier. Received 15 November 2014; Revised 5 March 2015; Accepted 29 March 2015; Available online 13 April 2015. This research was carried out at the Extraterrestrial Material Simulation Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). We would like to thank the two reviewers for the helpful comments/additions to this manuscript.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 59558
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150814-142329055
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Created
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2015-08-14Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences