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Can you teach an old Mars rover new tricks? NASA says the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Following its landing on Mars 13 years ago, Curiosity has been given new capabilities, allowing it to do science on the Red Planet while expending less energy from its batteries. Essentially, it can now multitask.
“We were more like cautious parents earlier in the mission,” Reidar Larsen, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. “It’s as if our teenage rover is maturing, and we’re trusting it to take on more responsibility. As a kid, you might do one thing at a time, but as you become an adult, you learn to multitask.”
Larsen led a group of engineers who developed the new capabilities for their six-wheeled teen.
The agency said improvements to Curiosity will allow the rover to make the most of its energy source, which is a type of nuclear battery known as a radioisotope thermoelectric generator also used by the Perseverance rover.
Managing the rover’s daily power budget as the plutonium in the battery decays, Curiosity can now safely talk to a local orbiter while driving, moving its robotic arm, or snapping images.
Curiosity can now decide to take a nap if it gets its work done early, ensuring there is less recharging necessary before the next day.
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Tracks are seen trailing NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars last month. The rover, which has been on the Red Planet since 2011, has recently learned to multitask (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
“Even actions that trim just 10 or 20 minutes from a single activity add up over the long haul, maximizing the life of the MMRTG for more science and exploration down the road,” the lab said in a release.
These developments build on years of work developing other capabilities, including enhanced driving ability, the ability for Curiosity’s head to capture panoramas without a color filter wheel on one of its “Mastcam” cameras, a new way for Curisotiy’s arm drill to collect rock and regolith samples, and an algorithm to help reduce wear and tear on the rover’s wheels.
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Curiosity viewed this rock shaped like a piece of coral last month. It’s mission is to determine whether the Red Planet ever was habitable to microbial life (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
The rover has recently been exploring formations of hardened ridges that were believed to have been created by underground water billions of years ago, finding rocks that were formed by the minerals deposited by ancient water flows and wind.
“A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here,” Curiosity’s project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said earlier this year. “As we drive on, we’ll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target.”