NASA’s Curiosity rover embarks on its mission to explore Mars

On Tuesday 21st of August, the Curiosity rover embarked on its first real mission, using its robotic arm for the first time. The rover, which landed on Mars on 6th of August after a 254 day journey, is set to explore Mount Sharp, a mountain on Mars near the enormous Gale crater. Curiosity seeks to explore the importance of water in Mars’ development as well as the possibility of life on Mars. It will collect data on the chemical makeup of the planet and search for organic compounds that may be present.

Curiosity is the first astrobiology mission from NASA in over four decades, and is the most technologically advanced rover ever sent into space. Weighing almost 900kg, the space laboratory is host to a variety of scientific instruments that will help it to analyse the surface of the red planet. It has four sets of cameras, giving scientists a view of Mars that they have never seen before. Two of these camera setups (MastCam and MARDI) can take high resolution, true-colour images and videos and are the first of their kind to do so. NASA released the first images from MARDI on the 7th of August, giving the general public the first ever true-colour image of Mars’ surface from orbit.

In order to analyse the chemistry of the planet, Curiosity is equipped with an infrared laser, which can vaporise small areas of rock. An onboard spectrometer is then able to look at the resulting spectra to determine the makeup of the rock. This will give scientists a great insight into whether or not life could have existed in that area. High levels of what biologists call the ‘building blocks of life’, a group of elements essential to life as we know it, would suggest that Mars once supported life.

As well as astrobiology, Curiosity is set to study the climate and geology of mars. The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) is a set of instruments that will catalog the weather conditions on Mars, as well as the atmospheric pressure and radiation levels. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) can take microscopic true-colour images of rock and soil. Knowing more about Mars’ climate and geology will help scientists to better understand it’s current water and carbon dioxide cycles, both of which are very important to the existence of life.

Curiosity’s mission is set to last two years, but it still has a long trip before it reaches Mount Sharp. It could take up to 6 months for the rover to complete the 7km journey. During that time, however, we can expect to see some very exciting developments. A well chosen landing site had meant that there is over 2 billion years of martian history to be discovered right beneath Curiosity’s wheels, as well as an ancient riverbed. Whether or not we will discover the truth about life on Mars remains to be seen. What we do know, however, is that we will certainly have a far greater knowledge of Mars in two years time than we ever have before.