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Hi, I'm Maria and
this is NASA Now.
The Mars rover, Curiosity,
is well on its way
to the fourth planet
from the sun.
When NASA's most advanced rover
lands on Mars, it will be able
to go farther, faster,
and do more science
than any of its predecessors.
We'll talk with an expert
who worked on the Mars rover
and learn more about the special
instruments on Curiosity.
That's ahead, first here's
what's happening at NASA Now.
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Laser, cameras, and a coin?
That's just some of the items
NASA's Mars rover is carrying
along with a highly
specialized camera called MAHLI,
or the Mars Hand Lens Imager.
The camera is designed to
look at the finest details
of Martian rocks and soil
that Curiosity collects.
To make sure the camera
is accurately adjusted,
scientists will be using a
specialized calibration target
mounted on the end of
the rover's robotic arm.
The target is about the
size of a smart phone.
At first glance, the target
looks like an eye chart
with very fine lines, color
chips and a real penny.
The penny is from 1909,
the first year Lincoln pennies
were minted and the centennial
of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
Including it on the
calibration target is a nod
to the geologists'
tradition of placing a coin
as a size reference in
close-up photographs of rocks.
Whoever thought a
penny could go so far?
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NASA's Curiosity rover
is carrying a lot
of high tech instruments
that will allow scientists
to learn more about the
mysterious Red Planet known
as Mars.
Today we have an expert who
knows a ton about Curiosity
and why robotic exploration
is critical
to landing humans on Mars.
Paulo Younse is a
robotics engineer
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, California.
He is working on the next
generation of robotic explorers.
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Curiosity is going to
weigh about 2,000 pounds,
and it's going to be about
the size of a small car
and it's pretty much
the largest,
most technically advanced rover
that we've ever sent
to another planet.
It's going to be able
to travel further
than anything else we've ever
sent, it also has wheels,
about 20 inches in diameter
that can actually drive
over huge obstacles and
rocks up to 30 inches tall.
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Curiosity is going to include
a whole suite of instruments
to help us analyze Mars
including some cameras,
which are mounted on the
very top of the rover,
that will allow us to
take nice high-definition,
color video images of
Mars and its landscape.
As well as, a microscopic
imager on the end
of a seven-foot long arm that
will allow us to take nice,
small, close-up images
of rocks and samples.
Also, it's going to have a drill
to be able to drill into rocks
to gather samples of
the rock material inside
of the rocks itself, and
a suite of instruments
to analyze those samples.
For example, CheMin which
is going to shine x-rays
at the rocks to be able to
figure out the mineralogy
of the rocks, the
chemicals inside of it,
and another instrument
called SAM, which we can heat
up the samples and actually
kind of boil out the gases
and chemicals, analyze that,
and look for organic materials
like hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, phosphorous,
and sulfur which are a lot of
the building blocks for life,
which is kind of what
we're looking for.
It also has this
instrument called ChemCam
which it can actually zap rocks
from afar with a little laser,
and then we can try to figure
out what those rocks are made
out of without having to
even drive up to the rocks,
and then it has a couple other
instruments that are going
to allow us to look for ice and
water underneath the surface
of Mars as well as
study the radiation
and the weather on Mars.
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NASA's missions are
based on inquiry,
and so we use the scientific
method for all of our missions.
We first come up with a
question we're trying to answer,
and then we come up with a
hypothesis, and then we come
up with some series of tests
to test out the hypothesis,
and then we analyze the results
and draw a conclusion based
on the results that
we gain from our test.
In our mission, Curiosity's
question that we're trying
to answer is, was
Mars habitable?
Could life have,
have existed on Mars?
And then the hypothesis
is that life could exist
if it has various organic
materials and in order to test
that hypothesis we come up
with a set of experiments,
in this case, sending a
rover to Mars, with a series
of instruments to look for
those organic materials.
And basically, once we collect
samples and are able to test
out these different
materials that we collected,
we can analyze that data,
determine if there's
organic materials in the soil
that could have made
Mars habitable,
and then draw conclusions
saying, you know,
Mars could have supported life
either now or in the past.
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We're actually already starting
to think about the next mission
that we want to send
after Curiosity.
So the proposed mission that
we want to send is actually
to send another rover
about the size of Curiosity
to Mars in possibly 2018.
To not just drive around
Mars, analyze the rocks
and take pictures, but
also to collect samples,
store them in a container that
we can actually bring back
to Earth in the future
and distribute them
to science institutions around
the world to also help us try
and investigate more of Mars.
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Our expert has shown that
robots play a critical role
in space exploration
today and in the future.
Here's a great way you can
get started on a career
that might lead to NASA.
There's no better way to learn
about robots and programming
than hands on experience.
Look for the link for the FIRST
Robotics Competition located
on the NASA Explorer
Schools Virtual Campus.
Well that's it for NASA Now,
be sure to visit our Facebook
page and leave a comment.
We'll see you next
time on NASA Now.
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NASA Now comes to you
from the Virtual Campus
at NASA Explorer Schools.
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