The Super High-Tech Science Gear on the Mars Rover

Mars is death to spacecraft.

Fewer than half the spacecraft that go

to Mars survive the landing.

So, this spacecraft has an amazing landing sequence.

It involves a blade of arrow shells

to slow it down as it impacts

the atmosphere at 13,000 miles an hour.

Then, a supersonic parachute deployment,

rocket motors to slow it down,

and the final step is to lower it

from a sky crane 20 feet above the surface on Mars

to a gentle landing on the surface.

And, if it lands, it's got years of work ahead of us

profiling the habitat of life on Mars.

The Mars rover behind me is one ton.

That's about the same mass as a smart car on Earth,

except the rover is nuclear powered.

It's carrying 165 pounds of science experiments.

This rover has a powerful laser mounted on its mast head

seven feet above the surface,

as tall as a basketball player.

That laser can vaporize rock and, when the rock vaporizes,

a glowing cloud of plasma comes out of the rock.

They then use the very same mirror

that was used to broadcast the laser

to pick up the spectrum of the plasma

and find out what the rocks are made of.

On the front of the rover, there is a robotic arm.

It lets us control from Earth.

It reaches out to touch the rocks on Mars,

to drill into them with a drill,

to gather samples, and carry them back to the rover.

It's got a brush to brush off the rocks.

It's got a scoop to scoop up the soil.

And, on it, it irradiates the surface of Mars

with alpha particles.

It blasts alpha particles into Mars.

And those alpha particles excite

X-ray fluorescence from the rock.

And that tells us the elements that the rock is made of.

And those elements will tell us if that rock

could be a habitat for life.

The previous rovers were part of a long term plan

to look for life on Mars.

And they were looking for water.

They were looking for minerals

that showed water interactions.

And they found water.

Completely successful.

Now, we're taking the next step towards life on Mars

and that's to look for the habitat for life

and for the organic molecules that are necessary for life.

And what we learn on this rover

will help us choose where the best places on Mars are

to go and return samples from.