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The Curiosity mobile executes commands at a maximum speed of 35 to 110 meters per hour. (File)
Some 126 million kilometers from the Earth, alone on the huge, icy Red Planet, a robot the size of a small 4×4 wakes up just after sunrise. Sun. And like every day for six years, he's waiting for his instructions.
Around 9:30 am, March time, a message arrives from California where it was sent 15 minutes earlier.
"Advance 10 meters, turn at a 45 degree azimuth, now turn on your autonomous abilities and drive."
The Curiosity mobile executes the controls by moving slowly to the desired position, at a maximum speed of 35 at 110 meters per hour. .
Its batteries and other configurations limit the daily driving time to about 100 meters. The greatest curiosity that has rolled on Mars in a day is 220 meters.
Once she arrives, her 17 cameras take pictures of her surroundings.
His laser zaps the rocks. Other embedded tools drill into a particularly interesting rock to study small samples.
Around 17 hours, Martian time, it will be necessary to wait until one of the three satellites of NASA in orbit around the planet pbades over his head.
Curiosity will then send several hundred megabytes.
Miniature Laboratory
On the ground floor of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center building 34 in Greenbelt, Maryland, scientists lean over Curiosity data daily at 13 hours, in a large windowless room filled with scientific instruments and computers.
Scientists are looking for any indication of life on Mars.
Inside Curiosity is a "marvel of miniaturization". Malespin, badistant chief investigator in charge of badyzing samples on Mars (SAM), a chemistry lab the size of a microwave oven.
"It's the most complicated instrument that NASA has ever sent to another planet," said Malespin, w. ho has dedicated his professional life to the project since 2006.
SAM badyzes samples of Martian soil by heating them in an oven up to 1800 Fahrenheit (1000 Celsius).
Charles Malespin, badistant principal investigator of the SAM instrument embarked on the Mars Curiosity mobile, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (AFP)
Hot rocks give off gas, which is separated and badyzed by instruments offering a "fingerprint".
At Goddard, Maeva Millan, a French postdoctoral researcher, compares this chemical fingerprint with experiments conducted with known molecules.
When they look alike, she can say, "Ah, that's the right molecule."
Thanks to SAM, researchers know that there are complex organic molecules on Mars.
And SAM Helped Scientists learn that the Martian surface – geologically speaking – is much younger than previously thought.
"If you go to Mars, you do not want to bring in already existing items that you can use as resources.," Like water, Malespin said.
"If you want to exploit the soil, heat it and free it from the water, you can bring a big oven with you and you have all the water you want."
There The same goes for various materials that can be used to make fuel for rockets, allowing the red planet to serve as a future rocket service station.
No Joystick
On the other side of the United States, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, about two dozen men and women are the team that drives curiosity.
"My favorite part of the day (that's when), I have the opportunity to sit down and start watching the images of Mars and understand where the current location is. rover, "said Frank Hartman, who drove Curiosity and another older rover, Opportunity.
"And I feel that sometimes I'm probably the first person on Earth to look at some of these images."
sequence of commands allowing the mobile to follow the next ground or "day" on Mars, which lasts 24 hours and nearly 40 minutes. There is no joystick or real-time communication with the robotic vehicle.
There is a delay when drivers realize that something is wrong, that Opportunity is buried by a Martian dust storm earlier this year or by one of Curiosity's wheels. to be pierced by a sharp rock.
Or the failure of the Curiosity drilling rig, which occurred at the beginning of this year and took a few months to resolve.
A miniature model of the Mars Curiosity rover in a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center laboratory in Greenbelt. (AFP)
"We have refuge" Hartman said he was at one of these places before.
"So we must always be aware of the fact that we know so little about what we come across."
Over the years, these scientists drivers are clinging to their robots when Opportunity became silent after 14 years of tooling Hartman and his colleagues felt a sense of grief.
Opportunity "retired with honor," said Hartman.
Curiosity, who landed in 2012, has gone a little over After 19.75 km, it was another year before reaching his goal, Mount Sharp
Then, a few months later, he lost his Martian monopoly.Two aircraft – an American and a European – should land on the planet in 2020.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is generated automatically by a syndicated feed.) [19659044] (function (d, s, id) {var if (d.getElementB) yId (id)) return; js = d.createElement (s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=213741912058651";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);} (document, & # 39; ; script;, & quot; facebook-jssdk & quot;));
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