Curiosity Rover Got its Arm Stuck in a Martian Rock

You know the feeling, you’re exploring an alien planet and drill into a rock, but the rock clings onto you and won’t let go. You wave your arms around in a desperate bid to shake it off.

Actually, you probably don’t know that, but the Mars Curiosity Rover does after a rock estimated to be 1.5 feet in diameter and weighing 28.6 pounds (13 kilograms) got stuck on its drill.

It would be easy to fix on Earth, but Curiosity is 140 million miles from home, and radio signals can take 30 minutes to travel between planets. It meant the stuck rock, which has been nicknamed “Atacama”, took a week to sort out.

“When the rover retracted its arm, the entire rock lifted out of the ground, suspended by the fixed sleeve that surrounds the rotating drill bit,” NASA explains in a blog post.

“Drilling has fractured or separated the upper layers of rocks in the past, but a rock has never remained attached to the drill sleeve. The team initially tried vibrating the drill to shake off the rock, but saw no change.”

Curiosity drilled into the obstinate rock on April 25, and after a few days of getting nowhere, NASA reoriented the robotic arm and vibrated the drill.

“Finally, on May 1, Curiosity’s team tried again, tilting the drill more, rotating and vibrating the drill, and spinning the drill bit,” says NASA. “The team planned to perform these actions multiple times but the rock came off on the first round, fracturing as it hit the ground.”

Curiosity has been on Mars for almost 14 years now, and the hostile Martian surface has taken its toll: those pesky rocks are also contributing to the vehicle’s deteriorating wheel health.

In March, Curiosity sent back photos of its wheels, some of which are in a terrible state. The rover has six wheels, and the most damaged one is its middle-right wheel.

Image credits: JPL/NASA