{"id":46153,"date":"2025-08-05T03:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/46153\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T03:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:48:14","slug":"marking-13-years-on-mars-nasas-curiosity-picks-up-new-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/46153\/","title":{"rendered":"Marking 13 Years on Mars, NASA\u2019s Curiosity Picks Up New Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"3uu6m\">Instead, Curiosity and its younger sibling <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/mars-2020-perseverance\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perseverance<\/a> each use their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/press_kits\/mars_2020\/launch\/mission\/spacecraft\/power\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMRTG<\/a> nuclear power source, which relies on decaying plutonium pellets to create energy and recharge the rover\u2019s batteries. Providing ample power for the rovers\u2019 many science instruments, MMRTGs are known for their longevity (the twin <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/voyager\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Voyager<\/a> spacecraft have relied on <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/voyager\/spacecraft\/#h-radioisotope-power-system-rps\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RTGs<\/a> since 1977). But as the plutonium decays over time, it takes longer to recharge Curiosity\u2019s batteries, leaving less energy for science each day.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"fq71o\">The team carefully manages the rover\u2019s daily power budget, factoring in every device that draws on the batteries. While these components were all tested extensively before launch, they are part of complex systems that reveal their quirks only after years in the extreme Martian environment. Dust, radiation, and sharp temperature swings bring out edge cases that engineers couldn\u2019t have expected.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"1nfva\">\u201cWe were more like cautious parents earlier in the mission,\u201d said Reidar Larsen of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built and operates the rover. Larsen led a group of engineers who developed the new capabilities. \u201cIt\u2019s as if our teenage rover is maturing, and we\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More Efficient Science<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"2ho0n\">Generally, JPL engineers send Curiosity a list of tasks to complete one by one before the rover ends its day with a nap to recharge. In 2021, the team began studying whether two or three rover tasks could be safely combined, reducing the amount of time Curiosity is active.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"cfof9\">For example, Curiosity\u2019s radio regularly sends data and images to a passing orbiter, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/centers-and-facilities\/jpl\/the-mars-relay-network-connects-us-to-nasas-martian-explorers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">relays them to Earth<\/a>. Could the rover talk to an orbiter while driving, moving its robotic arm, or snapping images? Consolidating tasks could shorten each day\u2019s plan, requiring less time with heaters on and instruments in a ready-to-use state, reducing the energy used. Testing showed Curiosity safely could, and all of these have now been successfully demonstrated on Mars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Instead, Curiosity and its younger sibling Perseverance each use their MMRTG nuclear power source, which relies on decaying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-46153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}