Mars Emergency: How NASA Engineers Remotely Unstuck Curiosity’s Drill Bit
Here's a small little reminder that space exploration is still full of messy, unexpected surprises. A sample rock nicknamed Atacama clung to the Curiosity rover’s drill for days before the Mars robot finally shook it free, giving its mission handlers yet another test of patience and improvisation.
Late last month, Curiosity drilled into Atacama, a rock about 1.5 feet across at its base, 6 inches thick, and roughly 28.6 pounds. When the rover retracted its arm, the rock unfortunately came up with it, suspended by the fixed sleeve around the rotating drill bit, which is likely a first so far for human space exploration.
Curiosity took days to get the rock off. NASA first tried vibrating the drill to jar the rock loose, to no avail. Then a couple of days later (April 29), the team reoriented the arm and tried again, and the images showed sand falling away while...
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