 the rover might collect on the surface of Mars.
Then, they would provide commands about what to explore more in depth and which samples to collect.
He said the exercise, which was mainly to familiarize the science team with the kind of control they would have once the rover was on the surface of Mars, also demonstrated to him some of the limitations of depending on a rover, instead of having a human walk around, picking up rocks and observing the environment firsthand.
“I definitely smiled a few times, when they’d choose certain rocks over another, because it was very curious — things look different in real life, versus images,” Milliken said.
Now, Milliken is a member of the science team and is most interested in understanding how the small amount of water present on Mars cycles through its environment, using equipment aboard the rover, including a detector that can measure the distribution of water in the soil.
The rover will first explore the area where it lands. Then, it will climb a mountain in the crater, called Sharp Mountain — sampling, photographing, and doing chemical and other analysis of the mountain’s sedimentary layers as it goes.
John Grotzinger, the chief scientist of the mission, said that the larger goal is to look for environments that could have been habitable, and to illuminate the history of the planet.
“It’s one of the great traditions of earth science that when you look through these layers one on top of another, it’s like reading a book — the history of the planet,” Grotzinger said. “We’re looking for chapters that will tell you about the presence or absence of a habitable environment.”Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org. Follow her on Twitter @carolynyjohnson.