How NASA's Curiosity Rover Overcame Steepest Climb On Mars Yet

Space.com

The Curiosity rover recently traversed "slippery sand and wheel-size rocks' while attempting to overcome a 23-degree Mount Sharp incline, according to NASA.   Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Transcript

00:00 What happens when a rover gets stuck on Mars?

00:02 Curiosity just made it through one of its toughest climbs yet,

00:05 as it's about to turn 11 years old.

00:07 Let me show you how.

00:08 Here in the Mars yard, test rovers try out terrain

00:16 that the actual rovers on the Red Planet have to deal with.

00:19 Curiosity has been facing a particularly challenging

00:22 last couple of months, and here to tell us all about that

00:25 is rover driver Dane Sholin.

00:27 Welcome, Dane.

00:28 Thanks, Marina. And that's right, the last two months

00:30 we've been climbing a steep part of Mount Sharp,

00:32 which has been quite a challenge.

00:33 The good news is, our team has found a detour

00:35 and we're back on track.

00:37 When we made the original plan to drive over this ridge years ago,

00:40 we were using orbital images, which aren't detailed enough

00:42 to show us all of the hazards.

00:44 It was only when Curiosity got close and took images of the area

00:47 that we could see just how much of a challenge it would be.

00:50 It's like the difference between Google Maps and Street View.

00:53 There are three things that make driving on Mars hard,

00:55 steep slopes, rocks, and sand, and this ridge had all three.

01:00 We tried seven drives on the original route, but we kept slipping,

01:03 and we have to be careful with Curiosity's wheels,

01:05 as they've already taken a lot of hits on the rough Martian terrain.

01:08 We zigzagged around this area for a couple of weeks,

01:10 trying to make our way up the ridge, but we just weren't making any progress.

01:13 We needed to try something different.

01:15 Let's head to the place where we plan our routes.

01:17 From testing to actually planning the rover drives,

01:21 how did you come up with a new route?

01:23 Well, there's actually a team of us that plan our routes, which can be tricky.

01:26 We're essentially off-roading because there's no roads on Mars. Yet.

01:30 Us rover planners work with the science team members to pick our routes

01:33 to get to the interesting locations while avoiding the hazards.

01:36 After so many faulted drives on this particular route,

01:38 we knew we needed to pull the plug and find an area nearby

01:41 with lower slopes, less sand, and fewer boulders.

01:44 We decided to make our way for an area 150 meters away.

01:47 It was a month-long commitment to take this detour,

01:49 with no guarantee we wouldn't run into difficult terrain again.

01:52 But at least we were moving forward. And that's life on Mars.

01:56 What was it like to finally get over that ridge?

01:59 Oh yeah, what a great view.

02:01 You can see where we got stuck and then the detour we took to finally get on top.

02:05 I get to look at images of Mars every day, so I really get a sense of the landscape.

02:10 I often feel like I'm standing there right next to Curiosity,

02:12 looking back at just how far it has climbed.

02:15 Getting Curiosity through that challenge over the last two months

02:17 has been a huge accomplishment and so rewarding.

02:20 So where is Curiosity headed to next?

02:22 Well, we're headed back to the original route, up Mount Sharp,

02:25 where we recently investigated a cluster of craters.

02:27 We don't see this scale of craters very frequently,

02:29 so the science team wanted to check it out.

02:31 [Rumbling]

02:32 Curiosity is celebrating its 11-year land-iversary and is still going strong.

02:37 There's something new to discover every day when you're going where no rover has gone before.

02:41 To get the latest updates, follow @NASAJPL and @NASAMars on social media,

02:47 or take a deeper dive on the mission website.

02:50 [ ♪ ]

02:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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