A short circuit in the arm of the Curiosity rover halted its work on February 27. Since that time the rover team has worked hard to discover the source of this short in the hopes of repairing it and getting Curiosity back to work. Now, mission controllers have traced the short circuit to the drill on its robotic arm.
On Thursday, NASA reported that the robotic arm is now moving again. The agency said Curiosity used its robotic arm on Wednesday to deliver a rock powder sample that was collected in February to the Chemistry and Mineral analytical instrument on the rover.
The sample rock was from a target on what is known as Telegraph Peak and since the successful delivery of the sample, mission controllers now plan to drive Curiosity away from the Pahrump Hills outcrop on Mount Sharp.
"That precious Telegraph Peak sample had been sitting in the arm, so tantalizingly close, for two weeks," said Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist for the Curiosity mission. "We are really excited to get it delivered for analysis."
The rover experienced the short circuit while using the percussion mechanism of its drill to shake power into a processing device on the robotic arm. Tests by scientists on Curiosity revealed that the most likely cause of the short circuit was a transient short for the percussion action of the motor.
"The most likely cause is an intermittent short in the percussion mechanism of the drill," said project manager Jim Erickson. "After further analysis to confirm that diagnosis, we will be analyzing how to adjust for that in future drilling."
The arm will again be used when it delivers the sample material from the Telegraph Peak into the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite.
Since Curiosity landed inside the Gale Crater on Mars two years ago, the drill has used both its rotary and percussion action for collecting samples from six rock targets. The first sampled rock, known as John Klein, found evidence that met the primary goal of the mission.
The sample revealed that early in the Red Planet's history, Mars had environmental conditions that were favorable for supporting microbial life. Currently, the rover is searching for evidence to indicate how the early environment of the planet evolved from wet to its current dry conditions.
In the coming days, mission controllers will begin moving the rover to higher ground from its current location in the Pahrump Hills in order to continue its search for rocks to support its mission.
