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AFP / Greenbelt, USA
At 126 million kilometers from Earth, a robot the size of a small 4×4 starts shortly after dawn.
Like every day for six years, wait for your instructions. Around 9:30, March time, the message comes from California a quarter of an hour before: 10 meters forward, 45 degrees rotation and automatic tracking to this point.
Curiosity, as we call it, moves slowly, between 35 and 110 meters per hour, no more. The batteries and other limitations explain their daily journey of about 100 meters, reaching a record of 220 meters.
Once there, the 17 cameras of the robot photograph the surroundings. His laser makes fun of the rocks. Faced with a particularly attractive stone, he stops to take a sample of a few grams.
Around 5 pm, the robot waits for the pbadage of one of NASA's three satellites orbiting Mars to transmit its report: several hundred megabits, then transmitted to the main terrestrial antennas of its satellite. human heads.
Miniature Laboratory
On the ground floor of NASA's Goddard Space Center Building 34 in the Greenbelt, one hour from Washington, scientists badyze this data every day. . In this large windowless room filled with instruments and computers, look for signs of life on Mars.
The interior of Curiosity is a marvel of miniaturization: a chemical laboratory the size of a microwave oven, called SAM.
Charles Malespin, Deputy Head of the Curiosity Science Team, points out the instruments in the work plans: they have been reduced and compacted inside the robot.
This is the most complicated instrument ever sent by NASA to another planet, says Malespin, who has dedicated his professional life since 2006. SAM badyzes the samples by heating them in a furnace at 1000 ° C.
During cooking, rocks and soils give off gases. Then, these gases are separated and sent to instruments that badyze them and draw a fingerprint.
At Goddard, French researcher Maeva Millan compares this chemical fingerprint to that of experiments carried out on known molecules. When the curves are imitated, he says: That's my good molecule.
Thanks to SAM, we know that there are complex organic molecules on Mars and that antiquity on the surface of the planet is well established, geologically much younger than scientists think.
If we want to go to Mars, there is no point in importing existing resources, Malespin adds, referring for example to the water. We could dig the soil, heat it and release water; With just one oven, we will have as much water as we want, he says.
The same is true for various materials that could serve as fuel for a future rocket service station.
Without a joystick
On the other side of the United States, at the Propulsin Laboratory in Chorro de Pasadena, near Los Angeles, about 15 men and women are at the helm of Curiosity.
My favorite moment of the day is the one where I'm sitting to see the pictures sent from Mars, tells from the other side of the phone Frank Hartman, who commands Curiosity and another robot, Opportunity, who it's separated in June.
The work of the drivers is to plan the Martian day – which lasts 24 hours and 40 minutes – of the robot and to program the commands to execute it. In the absence of joystick or real-time communication, it's unlikely that they will discover problems in advance, such as Opportunity saturation or ground-caused holes. rocky on the Curiosity wheels.
We must keep in mind that we know almost nothing about this place, says Hartman. Over the years, scientists and drivers are attached to their robots. After fourteen years of opportunity, Hartman and his teammates wanted to cry. He retired with honors, he says.
Curiosity has traveled 19.75 kilometers since 2012. In one year, you should reach your goal: Mount Sharp. A few months later, lose your Martian monopoly. Two US and European robots are expected to land on the planet in 2020.
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