JPL
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
JPL Logo
JPL Logo
Mars
.

10 Years Since Landing, NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Still Has Drive

Aug. 5, 2022
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took this 360-degree panorama at a drill site nicknamed Avanavero on June 20, 2022. In its decade on the Red Planet, the rover has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect 41 rock and soil samples for analysis.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took this 360-degree panorama at a drill site nicknamed Avanavero on June 20, 2022. In its decade on the Red Planet, the rover has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect 41 rock and soil samples for analysis.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Full Image Details

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

Ten years ago today, a jetpack lowered NASA’s Curiosity rover onto the Red Planet, beginning the SUV-size explorer’s pursuit of evidence that, billions of years ago, Mars had the conditions needed to support microscopic life.

Learn more about Curiosity’s 10th year on Mars from the mission’s deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Since then, Curiosity has driven nearly 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascended 2,050 feet (625 meters) as it explores Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp within it. The rover has analyzed 41 rock and soil samples, relying on a suite of science instruments to learn what they reveal about Earth’s rocky sibling. And it’s pushed a team of engineers to devise ways to minimize wear and tear and keep the rover rolling: In fact, Curiosity’s mission was recently extended for another three years, allowing it to continue among NASA’s fleet of important astrobiological missions.

Curiosity 10th Anniversary Poster

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. Curiosity has studied the Red Planet’s skies, capturing images of shining clouds and drifting moons. The rover’s radiation sensor lets scientists measure the amount of high-energy radiation future astronauts would be exposed to on the Martian surface, helping NASA figure out how to keep them safe.

But most important, Curiosity has determined 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. 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 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?”

See some of the best images captured by Curiosity

Curiosity has made striking progress up the mountain. Back in 2015, the team captured a “postcard” image 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.

‘Paraitepuy Pass’ From a Distance

This scene was captured by Curiosity on Sept. 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 Full Image Details

The 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.

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.”

Curiosity’s robotic drilling process, for example, 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.

GET THE LATEST JPL NEWS

Subscribe to Newsletter

To minimize damage to the wheels, engineers keep an eye out for treacherous spots like the knife-edged “gator-back” terrain they recently discovered, and 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 to 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.

For more about Curiosity, visit:

http://mars.nasa.gov/msl

and

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

Get the latest mission updates from the Curiosity team
Read about some of Curiosity’s top science results
Listen to JPL’s ‘On a Mission’ podcast about Mars rovers

News Media Contact

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

2022-115

Related News

Mars .

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes Mars Sample Depot

Solar System .

NASA’s Juno Team Assessing Camera After 48th Flyby of Jupiter

Solar System .

NASA’s Psyche Mission Continues Preparation for Launch in 2023

Solar System .

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Team Assessing Spacecraft’s Propulsion System

Mars .

NASA Explores a Winter Wonderland on Mars

Solar System .

Juno Spacecraft Recovering Memory After 47th Flyby of Jupiter

Mars .

NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science

Mars .

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface

Solar System .

40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter

Mars .

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot

Explore More

Image .

Ariadnes Colles

Image .

Curiosity Finds a Meteorite, Cacao

Image .

Daedalia Planum

Image .

Daedalia Planum

Image .

A New Impact Event

Image .

Going with the Flow

Image .

A Bear on Mars?

Image .

Gully Activity in Triolet Crater

Image .

Perseverance's Three Forks Sample Depot Map

Image .

WATSON Documents Final Tube Dropped at Three Forks Sample Depot

About JPL
Who We Are
Executive Council
Directors
Careers
Internships
The JPL Story
JPL Achievements
Documentary Series
Annual Reports
Missions
Current
Past
Future
All
News
All
Earth
Solar System
Stars and Galaxies
Subscribe to JPL News
Galleries
Images
Videos
Audio
Podcasts
Apps
Visions of the Future
Slice of History
Robotics at JPL
Events
Lecture Series
Team Competitions
Speakers Bureau
Calendar
Visit
Public Tours
Virtual Tour
Directions and Maps
Topics
JPL Life
Solar System
Mars
Earth
Climate Change
Exoplanets
Stars and Galaxies
Robotics
More
Asteroid Watch
NASA's Eyes Visualizations
Universe - Internal Newsletter
Social Media
Get the Latest from JPL
Follow Us

JPL is a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by Caltech.

More from JPL
Careers Education Science & Technology Acquisitions JPL Store
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
Acquisitions
JPL Store
Related NASA Sites
Basics of Spaceflight
Climate Kids
Earth / Global Climate Change
Exoplanet Exploration
Mars Exploration
Solar System Exploration
Space Place
NASA's Eyes Visualization Project
Voyager Interstellar Mission
NASA
Caltech
Privacy
Image Policy
FAQ
Feedback
Site Managers: Veronica McGregor, Randal Jackson
Site Editors: Tony Greicius, Naomi Hartono
CL#: 21-0018