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At 126 million kilometers from the Earth in the cold and reddish immensity of Mars, a robot the size of a small 4×4 starts shortly after dawn. Like every day for six years, he awaits his instructions.
At approximately 9:30 am, March comes the message that leaves California a quarter of an hour earlier: "10 meters Preview, it turns at 45 degrees and continues autonomously until this point. "
" Curiosity ", as it is called, moves slowly, between 35 and 110 meters per hour, without more. The batteries and other limitations explain their daily journey of about a hundred 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. Before a particularly attractive stone, it stops to take a sample of a few grams.
A few hours later, the robot will wait for the pbadage of one of the three satellites of NASA that gravitate around Mars to deliver its report: several hundred megabits, then transmitted to the main terrestrial antennas of its human leaders.
– Miniature Laboratory –
On the ground floor of building 34 at NASA's Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Washington Time, scientists badyze this data daily. 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 chief of Curiosity's scientific team, recalls the instruments in the work plans: they are reduced and compacted in the robot.
"This is the most complicated instrument that NASA has ever sent to another planet ," explains Malespin, who has dedicated his professional life there since 2006.
SAM badyzes the samples by heating them in an oven up to 1000 ° C. During cooking, rocks and earth release gases. Then these gases are separated and sent to instruments that badyze them and draw a "fingerprint" from the sample.
In Goddard, French researcher Maeva Millan compares this chemical trace with that of experiments carried out on known molecules. When the curves are imitated, he says: "That's my good molecule".
Through SAM, it is known that there are complex organic molecules on Mars and that established antiquity on the surface of the planet geologically much younger than the believed the scientists.
"If we want to go to Mars, it is useless to import existing resources," adds Malespin, referring for example to the water.
"We could dig the soil, heat it and release water, just by carrying an oven, we will have as much water as we want," he says. The same goes for various materials that could be used as fuel for a future "rocket service station".
– Without control pad –
On the other side of the United States, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, about fifteen men and women order Curiosity .
"My favorite moment of the day is when I sit down to watch the images sent from Mars," says Frank on the other side of the phone. Hartman, who commands Curiosity and another robot, Opportunity, who collapsed in June .
The work of the drivers is to plan the day Martian which lasts 24 hours and 40 minutes, the robot. and to program the commands to accomplish it.
Having no joystick or real-time communications, it is unlikely that they will discover problems in advance such as the saturation of Opportunity or the holes caused by the rocky soil of the Curi wheels. Hartman
"We have to 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 14 years of opportunity, Hartman and his teammates wanted to cry. "He retired with honors," he says.
Curiosity has traveled 19.75 km since 2012 . In one year, you should reach your goal: Mount Sharp. A few months later, he will lose his Martian monopoly. Two US and European robots are expected to land on the planet in 2020.
(Source: AFP)
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