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The OnePlus 11 5G Had My Curiosity, but Now Has My Attention

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To no one’s surprise, OnePlus’ next phone is called the OnePlus 11 5G. It’s currently available in China, and the phone is set to launch globally on Feb. 7. It follows last year’s pretty great OnePlus 10 Pro and comes on the heels of the OnePlus 10T which left a bad taste in our mouths because of its questionable compromises and a confusing value proposition.

Lucky for us, OnePlus provided a peek at the 11 back in December. And now, the new phone is on full display on OnePlus China’s website. After devouring it with the help of Google Translate, I am reminded of a line Leonardo DiCaprio’s character says in the film Django Unchained.

“Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. But now you have my attention.”

I already had high hopes for the 11 because it would be the third-generation phone to be released during OnePlus’ partnership with the iconic camera company Hasselblad. Up to now, Hasselblad’s influence has largely been behind-the-scenes with camera tuning and nifty software features like the Xpan panoramic-style. The OnePlus 11 could be the first time we see actual new camera hardware resulting from the partnership.

I should also point out that details and nuance can be lost in translation, so please keep that in mind as you read on.

https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/66c698ce4d59a6e57c71af2983088bba1a3acf2b/hub/2023/01/06/9588da6e-0152-4e9a-86b9-6b9fbc91bce2/oneplus-11-design.gif?auto=webp&format=mp4&width=1200

This gif was made from part of a promotional video on OnePlus China’s website.


OnePlus China

The OnePlus 11 looks fantastic

The 11’s design picks up where the 10 Pro left off. Translated, the site states that the OnePlus 11’s look was inspired by a “black hole in science fiction.” But instead of a square-ish camera bump found on the 10 Pro, the 11’s is circular on top with tapered sides that flow into the edge of the phone. It’s reminiscent of a clasp on a leather attaché. When the phone is in landscape, the camera bump’s shape looks almost like the silhouette of Darth Vader’s helmet.

The site shows off the phone in two colors. There is a matte green color, that isn’t quite British racing green, and a textured black finish, which according to translated text is “silk glass.” I gather this means the finish looks textured but to the touch is just flat glass.

The OnePlus 11’s design looks outstanding.


OnePlus China

There aren’t many photos of the front, but it has a display with waterfall edges that flow off the right and left sides of the phone. The front-facing camera is housed in a hole punch-shaped cutout on the top left side.

An alert slider is visible in a product video on the site that also shows flashy stylized closeups of the OnePlus 11. OnePlus previously confirmed that the button would return after its absence on the OnePlus 10T. The 11 joins the likes of the Nubia Red Magic 8, which has a similar hardware slider for putting the phone into gaming mode.

This photo shows some of the insides of the OnePlus 11. Like previous models, the 11 has truly fast charging speeds.


OnePlus China

The OnePlus 11 has the latest Android hardware 

The phone has a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with a variable refresh rate that tops out at 120Hz. The display is LTPO 3. Last year’s 10 Pro had an LTPO 2 display. LTPO stands for low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, which allows displays to have a high refresh rate without killing your battery. According to the translated text, LTPO 3 is smoother and even more power efficient. A graphic claims that the display can drop down to 1Hz, which is the same refresh rate the iPhone 14 Pro uses for its always-on display.

On the inside, the 11 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip which according to a OnePlus press release has 35% faster CPU performance and a 25% faster GPU. The 11 is one of the first phones with the new Qualcomm chip. The 11 also comes with 16GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage.

Powering everything are dual 2,500 mAh batteries that support 100W fast charging. Last year’s 10 Pro had the same dual-battery setup and supported 80W fast charging, except for US models which were capped at 65W fast charging. The OnePlus 10T supports 150W charging globally and 125W in the US. For perspective, the iPhone 14 Pro supports 20W fast charging. OnePlus says that the 11’s batteries can charge from empty to 100% in 25 minutes.

https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/4e4df78aadc1cb89944e5836de5bd03f8e4ef31e/hub/2023/01/06/40a74397-fab2-4f51-a0fb-de25bd8aeaf0/oneplus-11-camera-bump.gif?auto=webp&format=mp4&width=1200

This gif of the OnePlus 11’s camera bump was taken from a promotional video on OnePlus China’s website.


OnePlus China

The cameras are the same but different

The OnePlus 11 has a 50-megapixel main and 48-megapixel ultrawide camera system that’s similar to the 10 Pro’s. It also has a telephoto camera with a 32-megapixel sensor and 2x optical zoom compared to the 10 Pro’s 8-megapixel sensor and 3.3x optical zoom.

Sony made all of the image sensors including the one in the new telephoto camera. But you have to wonder if OnePlus and Hasselblad chose the 32-megapixel sensor and short tele-lens combo because it yields better photos than the tele on the 10 Pro. If that is the case, it’s the first time we see camera hardware design that stems from the OnePlus and Hasselblad partnership.

Translated text suggests the new telephoto camera can take photos with more accurate colors. OnePlus China’s site says that portrait mode pics have better-simulated bokeh that mimics the look of images taken with Hasselblad’s XCD medium-format lenses.

Sample photos from the 11 look good, with balanced colors and highlights that roll off for skin tones. We should take these photos with a big grain of salt because nearly every phone maker’s website flaunts impressive photos taken with their phones – ah, marketing! Sadly, there isn’t any mention of whether these photo improvements will apply to video recording.

This was a promotional photo OnePlus released in Dec. 2021.


OnePlus

Is there a OnePlus 11 Pro?

From everything I read on the website, the OnePlus 11 is the best-spec’d OnePlus phone ever made. It seems to be the “pro” model this year despite lacking the nomenclature. Its 6.7-inch screen is the same size as the one on the 10 Pro. In fact, OnePlus China’s President Li Jie said there is no “pro” version of the OnePlus 11 in response to a question on the Chinese social network Weibo.

That would mark a continued departure from OnePlus’ previous product strategy. Until recently, OnePlus had released three models of its flagship phones, a regular version, a “pro” one and later in the year a T model. For example, in 2020 there was a OnePlus 8, 8 Pro and 8T. The pro models typically have larger displays with a higher resolution and a third rear camera with a telephoto lens compared to the regular version.

Last year, the company released only a OnePlus 10 Pro without a standard model.

The OnePlus 11 and Buds Pro 2 will launch globally on Feb. 7.


OnePlus

What’s next for the OnePlus 11?

The new phone launches in China on Monday, Jan. 9. OnePlus is having a global launch event in India on Tuesday, Feb. 7, where it will also show off the OnePlus Buds Pro 2. I am truly looking forward to trying the phone out for myself, especially that new telephoto camera.


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NASA Rover Discovers Gemstone On Mars

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A research team using new methods to analyze data from NASA’s Curiosity, a rover operating on Mars since 2012, was able to independently verify that fracture halos contained opal, on Earth a gemstone formed by the alteration of silica by water.

The study finds that the vast subsurface fracture networks would have provided conditions that were potentially more habitable than those on the surface.

In 2012, NASA sent the Curiosity rover to Mars to explore Gale Crater, a large impact basin with a massive, layered mountain in the middle. As Curiosity has traversed along the Mars surface, researchers have discovered light-toned rocks surrounding fractures that criss-cross certain parts of the Martian landscape, sometimes extending out far into the horizon of rover imagery. Recent work finds that these widespread halo networks served as one of the last, if not the last, water-rich environments in a modern era of Gale Crater. This water-rich environment in the subsurface would have also provided more habitable conditions when conditions on the surface were likely much more harsh.

As part of a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, led by former Arizona State University NewSpace Postdoctoral Fellow Travis Gabriel, now a research physicist for the U.S. government, archival data from several instruments were examined and showed considerable anomalies near light-toned rocks earlier in the traverse. By happenstance, Curiosity rover drove right over one of these fracture halos many years ago, long before Gabriel and ASU graduate student and co-author Sean Czarnecki joined the rover team.

Looking at the old images, they saw a huge expanse of fracture halos extending far into the distance. By applying new methods for analyzing instrument data, the research team found something curious. These halos not only looked like halos found much later in the mission, in completely different rock units, but were similar in their composition: a whole lot of silica and water.

“Our new analysis of archival data showed striking similarity between all of the fracture halos we’ve observed much later in the mission,” Gabriel said. “Seeing that these fracture networks were so widespread and likely chock-full of opal was incredible.”

Observing drill cores taken at the Buckskin and Greenhorn drill sites many years into the mission, scientists confirmed that these light-toned rocks were very unique compared to anything the team had seen before.

In addition to looking back through archival data, Gabriel and his team went searching for opportunities to study these light-toned rocks again. Once they arrived at the Lubango drill site, a bright-toned fracture halo, Gabriel led a dedicated measurement campaign using the rover’s instruments, confirming the opal-rich composition.

The discovery of opal is noteworthy as it can form in scenarios where silica is in solution with water, a similar process to dissolving sugar or salt in water. If there is too much salt, or conditions change, it begins to settle at the bottom. On Earth, silica falls out of solution in places like lake and ocean bottoms and can form in hot springs and geysers, somewhat similar to the environments at Yellowstone National Park.

Since scientists expect that this opal in Gale Crater was formed in a modern Mars era, these subsurface networks of fractures could have been far more habitable than the harsh modern-day conditions at the surface.

“Given the widespread fracture networks discovered in Gale Crater, it’s reasonable to expect that these potentially habitable subsurface conditions extended to many other regions of Gale Crater as well, and perhaps in other regions of Mars,” Gabriel said. “These environments would have formed long after the ancient lakes in Gale Crater dried up.”

The significance of finding opal on Mars will have advantages for future astronauts, and exploration efforts could take advantage of these widespread water resources. Opal itself is made up of predominantly two components: silica and water – with a water content ranging from 3 to 21 percent by weight – with minor amounts of impurities such as iron. This means that if you grind it down and apply heat, the opal releases its water. In a previous study, Gabriel and other Curiosity rover scientists demonstrated this exact process. Combined with growing evidence from satellite data that shows the presence of opal elsewhere on Mars, these resilient materials may be a great resource for future exploration activities elsewhere on Mars.

Material provided by the Arizona State University.

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface – NASA Mars Exploration

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Perseverance Deposits Its First Sample on the Martian Surface: Once the Perseverance team confirmed the first sample tube was on the surface, they positioned the WATSON camera located at the end of the rover’s robotic arm to peer beneath the rover, checking to be sure that the tube hadn’t rolled into the path of the wheels. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

Filled with rock, the sample tube will be one of 10 forming a depot of tubes that could be considered for a journey to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.

A titanium tube containing a rock sample is resting on the Red Planet’s surface after being placed there on Dec. 21 by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location, called “Three Forks,” building humanity’s first sample depot on another planet. The depot marks a historic early step in the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other 17 samples (including one atmospheric sample) taken so far in its belly. Based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.

The depot will serve as a backup if Perseverance can’t deliver its samples. In that case, a pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters would be called upon to finish the job.

The first sample to drop was a chalk-size core of igneous rock informally named “Malay,” which was collected on Jan. 31, 2022, in a region of Mars’ Jezero Crater called “South Séítah.” Perseverance’s complex Sampling and Caching System took almost an hour to retrieve the metal tube from inside the rover’s belly, view it one last time with its internal CacheCam, and drop the sample roughly 3 feet (89 centimeters) onto a carefully selected patch of Martian surface.

Testing a Sample Drop in the Mars Yard: Engineers use OPTIMISM, a full-size replica of NASA’s Perseverance rover, to test how it will deposit its first sample tube on the Martian surface. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

But the job wasn’t done for engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission. Once they confirmed the tube had dropped, the team positioned the WATSON camera located at the end of Perseverance’s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to peer beneath the rover, checking to be sure that the tube hadn’t rolled into the path of the rover’s wheels.

They also wanted to ensure the tube hadn’t landed in such a way that it was standing on its end (each tube has a flat end piece called a “glove” to make it easier to be picked up by future missions). That occurred less than 5% of the time during testing with Perseverance’s Earthly twin in JPL’s Mars Yard. In case it does happen on Mars, the mission has written a series of commands for Perseverance to carefully knock the tube over with part of the turret at the end of its robotic arm.

OPTIMISM Sticks the Landing: Engineers react with surprise while testing how NASA’s Perseverance rover will deposit its sample tubes on the Martian surface. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

In coming weeks, they’ll have other opportunities to see whether Perseverance needs to use the technique as the rover deposits more samples at the Three Forks cache.

“Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on Jan. 6,” said Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at JPL. “It’s a nice alignment that, just as we’re starting our cache, we’re also closing this first chapter of the mission.”

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good / DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433 / 818-393-9011
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov / agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity reaches intriguing salty site after treacherous journey

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After a treacherous journey, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has reached an area that is thought to have formed billions of years ago when the Red Planet’s water disappeared.

This region of Mount Sharp, the Curiosity rover’s Martian stomping ground, is rich in salty minerals that scientists think were left behind when streams and ponds dried up. As such, this region could hold tantalizing clues about how the Martian climate changed from being similar to Earth’s to the frozen, barren desert that Curiosity explores today.

The salty minerals that enrich this area of Mount Sharp were first spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter years before Curiosity touched down on the Martian surface in 2012. 

Related: Curiosity rover: 15 awe-inspiring photos of Mars (gallery)

When Curiosity finally got a close-up look at the terrain of Mount Sharp, the rover discovered a diverse array of rock types and signs of past water, including popcorn-textured nodules and salty minerals such as magnesium sulfate, calcium sulfate (including gypsum) and sodium chloride, which makes up ordinary table salt.

After accounting for stresses on the rotary drill at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2 meters) arm that’s used to pulverize rock samples for analysis, the Curiosity team selected a rock nicknamed “Canaima” for the drilling and collection of the mission’s 36th drill sample.

“As we do before every drill, we brushed away the dust and then poked the top surface of Canaima with the drill,” Kathya Zamora-Garcia, Curiosity’s project manager, said in a statement. “The lack of scratch marks or indentations was an indication that it may prove difficult to drill.” 

The team then stopped to see whether that posed a danger to Curiosity’s arm. With a new drilling algorithm created to minimize the use of percussion, which is a hammering motion used by drills to penetrate hard surfaces, they decided to proceed, and no percussion was needed, Zamora-Garcia explained. 

The team will now analyze pieces of the sample collected from Canaima using Curiosity’s Chemical and Mineralogy instrument and Sample Analysis at Mars instrument.

An image from NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars taken on Aug. 23, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Curiosity’s summer road trip 

To reach the sulfate-rich region, the Curiosity rover spent August journeying through a narrow, sand-lined stretch called Paraitepuy Pass. It took over a month for Curiosity to safely navigate this treacherous terrain, which snakes between high hills. Although Paraitepuy Pass is mostly free of sharp rocks that could damage the rover’s wheels, sand can be just as hazardous for Curiosity; if its wheels lose traction, the rover could get stuck. 

The rover’s drivers also had another challenge to consider: The Martian sky was blocked by the hills around it, meaning Curiosity had to be carefully positioned so that its antennas pointed toward Earth and could remain in contact with Mars orbiters. 

As the team carefully navigated this path, they were rewarded with some stunning images from Curiosity’s Mastcam, particularly a panorama of the region captured on Aug. 14.

“We would get new images every morning and just be in awe,” Curiosity’s science operations coordinator, Elena Amador-French, who manages collaboration between the science and engineering teams, said in the statement. “The sand ridges were gorgeous. You see perfect little rover tracks on them. And the cliffs were beautiful  —  we got really close to the walls.”

Despite clearing Paraitepuy Pass, Curiosity has a tough road ahead. This salty region comes with its own challenges — in particular, the rover’s operating team will have to account for the rocky terrain that makes it harder to place all six of Curiosity’s wheels on stable ground.

If Curiosity isn’t stable, operators won’t risk unfolding its drill-holding arm in case it clashes with jagged rocks. 

“The more and more interesting the science results get, the more obstacles Mars seems to throw at us,” Amador-French said.

Curiosity will continue to explore this area, proving that after 10 years on Mars, the rover still has a lot of ground to cover.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 



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Mars rover Curiosity reaches sulfate-rich Mount Sharp • The Register

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NASA’s long-serving Curiosity Mars rover has finally reached an objective it has been ambling toward since landing on the red planet a decade ago: the “sulfate-bearing unit” of Mount Sharp. 

The region was first spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying the Gale Crater region of Mars since 2006. NASA flagged the area for investigation because of a high concentration of salty minerals that suggests it was once covered in water.

“Soon after arriving, the rover discovered a diverse array of rock types and signs of past water,” NASA said. Among the signs were “popcorn-textured nodules” and minerals including magnesium sulfate (epsom salts), calcium sulfate (gypsum), and sodium chloride (table salt). 

Curiosity found the minerals by drilling into a rock NASA named “Canaima” in the sulfate-bearing unit, which NASA said initially gave them trouble over concerns that it was too hard. Trying to break it could have further damaged the rover’s arm due to worn brakes after taking 35 prior drill samples, though the team said it turned out to be easier to pulverize than they initially thought. 

Curiosity’s drill hole made in Canaima

A long road

Curiosity has had its sights set on Mount Sharp since landing on Mars in 2012. The three-mile (5km) mountain has appeared in Curiosity’s photos from the Martian surface for years, and in 2020 NASA began highlighting the rover’s journey up the mountain to the sulfate site. 

By June, Curiosity was getting close, but still had to pass through the narrow “Paraitepuy Pass,” where its pilots had to deal with hills that intermittently blocked Curiosity’s signal to orbiting satellites. Curiosity escaped the pass without damage, and with a set of photographs Curiosity’s science operations director described as awe-inspiring. 

“The sand ridges were gorgeous,” Elena Amador-French said. “You see perfect little rover tracks on them. And the cliffs were beautiful – we got really close to the walls.”

Paraitepuy Pass, a treacherous region Curiosity had to recently navigate

NASA hopes that its research in the sulfate-rich unit will provide additional clues as to how Mars dried up and turned into the barren wasteland we now believe it to be. Curiosity found evidence earlier this year that methane-producing life may have existed on Mars, and in the meantime simulations of Mars’ environment may have provided a hypothesis that Curiosity can at least contribute to solving. 

Research led by the University of Arizona recently found that Mars’ environment may have been just different enough from Earth’s such that early life – particularly the sort that belches methane – could have cooled the planet by removing too much hydrogen, thinning the atmosphere and causing Mars to turn into the inhospitable world we know today. 

NASA plans to spend the next few years exploring the sulfate-rich area, and already has new research targets in mind for Curiosity’s next stops. ®

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Science

Curiosity Mars Rover Reaches Long-Awaited Salty Region – NASA Mars Exploration

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The rover has arrived at a special region believed to have formed as Mars’ climate was drying.

After journeying this summer through a narrow, sand-lined pass, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover recently arrived in the “sulfate-bearing unit,” a long-sought region of Mount Sharp enriched with salty minerals.

Scientists hypothesize that billions of years ago, streams, and ponds left behind the minerals as the water dried up. Assuming the hypothesis is correct, these minerals offer tantalizing clues as to how – and why – the Red Planet’s climate changed from being more Earth-like to the frozen desert it is today.

The minerals were spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter years before Curiosity landed in 2012, so scientists have been waiting a long time to see this terrain up close. Soon after arriving, the rover discovered a diverse array of rock types and signs of past water, among them popcorn-textured nodules and salty minerals such as magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt is one kind), calcium sulfate (including gypsum), and sodium chloride (ordinary table salt).

Curiosity’s View of Sand Ridges and ‘Bolívar’: NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this panorama of a hill nicknamed “Bolivar” and adjacent sand ridges on Aug. 23, the 3,572nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image ›

They selected a rock nicknamed “Canaima” for the mission’s 36th drill sample, and choosing was no easy task. Along with scientific considerations, the team had to factor in the rover hardware. Curiosity uses a percussive, or jackhammering, rotary drill at the end of its 7-foot (2-meter) arm to pulverize rock samples for analysis. Worn brakes on the arm recently led the team to conclude that some harder rocks may require too much hammering to drill safely.

“As we do before every drill, we brushed away the dust and then poked the top surface of Canaima with the drill. The lack of scratch marks or indentations was an indication that it may prove difficult to drill,” said Curiosity’s new project manager, Kathya Zamora-Garcia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We paused to consider whether that posed any risk to our arm. With the new drilling algorithm, created to minimize the use of percussion, we felt comfortable collecting a sample of Canaima. As it turned out, no percussion was needed.”

The mission’s scientists look forward to analyzing portions of the sample with the Chemical and Minerology instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM).

Curiosity’s 36 Drill Holes: This grid shows all 36 holes drilled by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover using the drill on the end of its robotic arm. The rover analyzes powderized rock from the drilling activities. The images in the grid were captured by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the end of Curiosity’s arm. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image ›

Difficult Driving

The journey to the sulfate-rich region took Curiosity through treacherous terrain, including, this past August, the sandy “Paraitepuy Pass,” which snakes between high hills. It took the rover more than a month to safely navigate in order to finally reach its destination.

While sharp rocks can damage Curiosity’s wheels (which have plenty of life left in them), sand can be just as hazardous, potentially causing the rover to get stuck if the wheels lose traction. Rover drivers need to carefully navigate these areas.

The hills blocked Curiosity’s view of the sky, requiring the rover to be carefully oriented based on where it could point its antennas toward Earth and how long it could communicate with orbiters passing overhead.

Curiosity’s 36th Drill Hole at ‘Canaima’: Curiosity used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this image of its 36th successful drill hole on Mount Sharp, at a rock called “Canaima.” The rovers Mars Hand Lens Imager took the inset image. The pulverized rock sample was acquired on Oct. 3, 2022, the mission’s 3,612th Martian day, or sol. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Download image ›

After braving those risks, the team was rewarded with some of the most inspiring scenery of the mission, which the rover captured with an Aug. 14 panorama using its Mast Camera, or Mastcam.

“We would get new images every morning and just be in awe,” said Elena Amador-French of JPL, Curiosity’s science operations coordinator, who manages collaboration between the science and engineering teams. “The sand ridges were gorgeous. You see perfect little rover tracks on them. And the cliffs were beautiful – we got really close to the walls.”

But this new region comes with its own challenges: While scientifically compelling, the rockier terrain makes it harder to find a place where all six of Curiosity’s wheels are on stable ground. If the rover isn’t stable, engineers won’t risk unstowing the arm, in case it might bang into the jagged rocks.

“The more and more interesting the science results get, the more obstacles Mars seems to throw at us,” Amador-French said.

But the rover, which recently marked its 10th year on Mars, and its team are ready for this next chapter of their adventure.

More About Curiosity

The Curiosity mission is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

For more about Curiosity, visit:
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Still Going 10 Years After Landing – What It’s Learned

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Curiosity set out to answer the question: Did Mars ever have the right environmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes? Early in its mission, Curiosity’s scientific tools found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. It continues to explore the rock record from a time when Mars could have been home to microbial life. Credit: NASA

Despite signs of wear, the intrepid spacecraft is about to start an exhilarating new chapter of its mission as it climbs a Martian mountain.

Ten years ago, on August 5, 2012, a jetpack lowered NASA’s Curiosity rover onto the Red Planet. This was the beginning of the SUV-size explorer’s pursuit of evidence that

Stay curious with NASA and celebrate the agency’s Curiosity Mars rover’s 10th anniversary on the Red Planet with a two-sided poster that lists some of the intrepid explorer’s inspiring accomplishments. Download it for free here. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Bounty of Science

It’s been a busy decade for Curiosity. The roving explorer has studied the Red Planet’s skies, capturing images of shining clouds and drifting moons. It radiation sensor is helping NASA figure out how to keep future astronauts safe by measuring the amount of high-energy radiation they would be exposed to on the Martian surface.

But most significantly, Curiosity has found that liquid water, as well as the chemical building blocks and nutrients needed for supporting life, were present for at least tens of millions of years in Gale Crater. The crater once held a lake, the size of which waxed and waned over time. This means that each layer higher up on Mount Sharp serves as a record of a more recent era of Mars’ environment.

Now, the intrepid rover is driving through a canyon that marks the transition to a new region, one thought to have formed as water was drying out, leaving behind salty minerals called sulfates.

“We’re seeing evidence of dramatic changes in the ancient Martian climate,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “The question now is whether the habitable conditions that Curiosity has found up to now persisted through these changes. Did they disappear, never to return, or did they come and go over millions of years?”

Curiosity has made striking progress up the mountain. Back in 2015, the team captured a “postcard” image (see below) of distant buttes. A mere speck within that image is a Curiosity-size boulder nicknamed “Ilha Novo Destino” – and, nearly seven years later, the rover trundled by it last month on the way to the sulfate-bearing region.

The Curiosity team plans to spend the next few years exploring the sulfate-rich area. Within it, they have targets in mind like the Gediz Vallis channel, which may have formed during a flood late in Mount Sharp’s history, and large cemented fractures that show the effects of groundwater higher up the mountain.

This scene was captured by Curiosity on September 9, 2015, when NASA’s Mars rover was many miles from its current location. The circle indicates the location of a Curiosity-size boulder that the rover recently drove past. To the left of that is “Paraitepuy Pass,” which Curiosity is now traveling through. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

How to Keep a Rover on a Roll

What’s Curiosity’s secret to maintaining an active lifestyle at the ripe old age of 10? A team of hundreds of dedicated engineers, of course, working both in person at JPL and remotely from home.

They catalog each and every crack in the wheels, test every line of computer code before it’s beamed into space, and drill into endless rock samples in JPL’s Mars Yard, ensuring Curiosity can safely do the same.

“As soon as you land on Mars, everything you do is based on the fact that there’s no one around to repair it for 100 million miles,” said Andy Mishkin, Curiosity’s acting project manager at JPL. “It’s all about making intelligent use of what’s already on your rover.”

For example, Curiosity’s robotic drilling process has been reinvented multiple times since landing. At one point, the drill was offline for more than a year as engineers redesigned its use to be more like a handheld drill. More recently, a set of braking mechanisms that allow the robotic arm to move or stay in place stopped working. Although the arm has been operating as usual since engineers engaged a set of spares, the team has also learned to drill more gently to preserve the new brakes.

To minimize damage to the wheels, engineers keep an eye out for treacherous spots like the knife-edged “gator-back” terrain they discovered recently. They developed a traction-control algorithm to help as well.

The team has taken a similar approach to managing the rover’s slowly diminishing power. Curiosity relies on a long-lived nuclear-powered battery rather than solar panels to keep on rolling. As the plutonium pellets in the battery decay, they generate heat that the rover converts into power. Because of the pellets’ gradual decay, the rover can’t do quite as much in a day as it did during its first year.

Mishkin said the team is continuing to budget how much energy the rover uses each day, and has figured out which activities can be done in parallel to optimize the energy available to the rover. “Curiosity is definitely doing more multitasking where it’s safe to do so,” Mishkin added.

Through careful planning and engineering hacks, the team has every expectation the plucky rover still has years of exploring ahead of it.

More About the Mission

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, built Curiosity for NASA and leads the mission on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.



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