NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity Autonomously Selecting Rocks As Targets For Its Laser

NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity has now a new capability. It chooses its own rock targets for its ChemCam, an instrument that macerates the rocks and examines their chemical properties.

Previously, the scientists are selecting most of the ChemCam targets. They discussed the rocks or soils that were seen in the images the rover has sent to Earth.

The rover now uses the AEGIS software or the Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science to examine images from a wide-angle camera as the basis for autonomously choosing rocks to photograph with a narrower-angle camera, according to NASA.

Dynamite with a Laser Beam: I can now choose rocks to zap with ChemCam on my own. #pewpew https://t.co/LykbkDIJmM pic.twitter.com/lBifknxhdZ

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) July 21, 2016

Tara Estlin, a robotics engineer and the leader of AEGIS development at JPL said that this autonomy is particularly useful at times when getting the science team in the loop is complex or impossible---in the middle of a long drive, perhaps, or when the schedules of Earth, Mars and spacecraft activities lead to delays in sharing information between the planets.

Estlin further explained that due to the small sizes and other pointing challenges, hitting these targets accurately with the laser has often needed the rover to stay in place while ground operators fine tune pointing parameters. She added that AEGIS enables these targets to be hit on the first try by automatically recognizing them and calculating a pointing that will center a ChemCam measurement on the target.

Olivier Gasnault from the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP) and the ChemCam Science Operator said that AEGIS brings an extra opportunity to use ChemCam to do more when the interaction with scientists is limited. He further said that it does not replace an existing mode, but complements it.

Curiosity rover four years journey on Mars has inspected over 1,400 targets, firing its laser about 3,500 times, according to Popular Mechanics. The rover aims to know if the Red Planet supports microscopic life. With its new autonomous capability, it could speed up in attaining its mission.