By: Nick Gambino
The NASA rover Curiosity has been rolling around on Mars since 2012. It’s amazing that the little guy is still going 12 years later, a testament to the precision tech in design and construction.
That said, there’s no way more than a decade on Mars without repair and maintenance wouldn’t wear on Curiosity. Some new images shared by the space agency show that the rocky, arid terrain has taken its toll on the rover’s wheels.
In one photo, one of the robot’s six aluminum wheels sports a yawning hole with the full guts of the internal mechanism on display. It’s pretty gnarly and at first glance looks catastrophic, but NASA doesn’t seem worried.
This is only the middle wheel on the right. Meaning, there are still five others in pretty good shape and even this worn wheel is still functioning. NASA periodically assesses the state and health of Curiosity’s wheels, having the rover drive slowly over a distance of seven meters. This little trek takes three hours, all the while Curiosity snaps photos using the camera on one of its arms called MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager).
Holes in the Mars rover’s wheels are not new. The first ones showed up years ago, but not unexpectedly, the new images show that they’ve gotten a lot worse. Curiosity’s mission on the Red Planet has seen it cover a full 20 miles of rock and dust and other non-wheel friendly terrain.
Perseverance, another NASA rover, landed on Mars back in 2021 and isn’t seeing the same problems. They designed its wheels to be more durable and withstand the unique surface of the Red Planet.
The idea for Perserverance’s upgrade came largely from their assessment of Curiosity’s wheels. Being a good nine years younger, they had time to perfect the way these guys get around.
The fact that Curiosity is still going, doing its research work, discovering a brand new world 118 million miles away is impressive to say the least. And a few holes in the wheels aren’t going to slow it down any time soon.
