Curiosity gets drilling on Mars

Rover has obtained a powdered rock sample which will be analysed by the onboard laboratory

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has relayed new images that confirm it has successfully obtained the first sample ever collected from the interior of a rock on another planet.

The drill on the rover's robotic arm bored a 6.4 cm hole into a sedimentary rock on the flat Martian surface, which was selected as it could hold evidence of wet environmental conditions on the planet.

The powdered-rock sample was transferred into an open scoop, which was visible for the first time in images received on Wednesday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The rover team plans to have Curiosity sieve the sample and deliver portions of it to analytical instruments inside.

JPL's Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer for Curiosity, said: “Seeing the powder from the drill in the scoop allows us to verify for the first time the drill collected a sample as it bore into the rock.

“Many of us have been working toward this day for years. Getting final confirmation of successful drilling is incredibly gratifying. For the sampling team, this is the equivalent of the landing team going crazy after the successful touchdown.”

The powder will be enclosed inside Curiosity's Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device and shaken once or twice over a sieve that screens out particles larger than 0.006 inch (150 microns) across.

Small portions of the sieved sample later will be delivered through inlet ports on top of the rover deck into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument.

The sample comes from a fine-grained, veiny sedimentary rock named “John Klein” in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using the Curiosity rover to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater once offered an environment favourable for microbial life.