Curiosity's New Drilling Technique

[Doug Klein] Since Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012,
it's used its drill to acquire samples
from Martian rocks 15 times.
But a little over a year ago in December of 2016,
Curiosity's drill started giving it problems.
The drill's feed mechanism, which is responsible for
moving Curiosity's drill bit into and out of rocks,
didn't move when commanded.
When Curiosity drills into a rock the way it was designed
to, the drill's two stabilizer posts touch the rock first to
steady the arm while the drill's feed mechanism moves
the bit forward into the rock.
Without the feed mechanism working,
we can't drill that way.
To solve this problem, we do what we always do.
We worked it out in the testbed using
Curiosity's twin on Earth.
Our team of engineers and scientists have been working
for months to figure out a way to collect and deliver
rock samples without using the feed mechanism.
Here's what we came up with.
Using our new technique called feed extended drilling,
the stabilizers are not used.
The bit is now in a forward position
extended past the stabilizers.
[Male on radio unintelligable]
[Klein] Moving the drill straight into a rock
and retracting safely
without the stabilizers is challenging.
We move the arm instead of the feed mechanism to place the
bit onto the rock and press it forward as it drills.
[Man on radio] [Unintelligble] start hole's beginning, over.
[Klein] After making contact, we apply a light preload
and drill a shallow pilot hole.
We use a force sensor in the robotic arm
to give Curiosity a sense of touch.
[drilling]
This lets Curiosity adjust its arm motion and avoid getting
stuck while drilling; kind of like you might adjust your arm
while drilling into a wall at home.
[knocking]
After drilling, we use a similar technique
to retract from the hole without getting stuck.
We recently tried this method using Curiosity on Mars
and here's how it turned out.
This picture shows the first hole drilled on Mars ever
with this new drilling technique.
Even though we can't see the hole in this image,
we know we drilled about one centimeter deep.
The hole itself is buried under the powder
generated during drilling.
This is a good sign for the new drilling method.
Next, we have to drill a deeper hole to collect sample
and demonstrate our new techniques for delivering the
sample to Curiosity's two onboard labs.
That will come in the days ahead.
[LOGO: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology]
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation MARS 2018 NASA FOTOS, Sounds of Mars China Moon Landing (the full video) Five Years of Curiosity on Mars (public talk) This is Mars 2018, Curiosity Rover NEW MARS IMAGES 2-16-18 NASA Mars Report: Feb. 26, 2018 CURIOSITY MARS ROVER IS LOOKING DOWN + PDS IMAGES SOL1065 Curiosity at Martian Scenic Overlook BEST MARS CURIOSITY ROVER IMAGES SOL SOL1899,1901 & 1903

Curiosity's New Drilling Technique

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