Ten years ago, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Today, it continues to aid in scientific research of the red planet.

Dr. Marjorie Chan, a professor in the department of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, said that Curiosity, which landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012, was never supposed to last 10 years, making this anniversary an important one.

“The mission was supposed to last at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth days,” Chan said in an email interview. “So the fact that we’re now celebrating its 10-year anniversary is a testimony to human ingenuity of science, engineering, technology and the deep dedication of people that have made the mission successful, and have brought us into a new era of planetary science.”

This anniversary is an incredible achievement, said Wanda Harding, former senior Mission Manager at NASA and current high school teacher, considering the rover has answered many important questions about Mars and the conditions on the planet.

“The questions that we’ve been able to answer over the course of the past 10 years are what makes this 10-year anniversary significant from my perspective, being a part of the launch team,” Harding said.

The Mission

According to Chan, the Curiosity rover was sent to Mars to answer one important question: Was Mars ever a habitable planet?

“The Curiosity mission was to determine whether the Red Planet ever had the right conditions and ingredients to host microbial life, and for how long,” Chan said. 

According to Harding, this mission was a difficult one at the time, with the rover carrying much more equipment than previous rovers had.

“The instruments on board were intentionally designed to help us really start to answer those serious questions about the possibility of habitability on the planet, if the conditions existed, and also to help answer that question about whether or not water ever flowed on Mars,” Harding said.

Because of this extra equipment, as well as its larger size, the Curiosity rover needed a stronger power source than previous rovers, Harding said, which made this mission an ambitious one for NASA.

“The drill, the cameras, the sensors, everything that they have on Curiosity required a significant amount of power,” Harding said. “Instead of solar, as we used for Spirit and Opportunity and Sojourner, there was a nuclear power source for that battery onboard Curiosity.”

While the Curiosity rover has lasted a significant time on Mars, the mission itself started with several setbacks due to the rover’s complexity, delaying the launch for over two years past its original date in October 2009, Harding said.

“There were some technical difficulties and issues that they had to resolve,” Harding said. “And we had to make the tough decision of whether we try to force a launch in 2009, or do we wait until the next opportunity for a Mars mission to occur. That tough decision was made to go ahead and fix what we need to so that Curiosity does everything it was designed and intended to do.”

According to Harding, the delay was critical to the success of Curiosity, and the teamwork involved in the launch was key to creating a smooth landing for the rover.

“Teamwork is important because there are no solo acts when you’re doing something this ambitious, and you have to respect the talents that each member brings, because you’re leveraging from all of that comes into play with helping to accomplish that common big picture,” Harding said.

According to Chan, the Curiosity rover was able to answer the many questions NASA had about Mars, with the rover confirming the potential habitability of the red planet.

“From the rock analyses, the mission has been able to determine certain minerals that indicate wet conditions, as well as detecting the presence of sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon — key ingredients necessary for life,” Chan said.

A Future on Mars

Since its launch, the success and durability of Curiosity has paved the way for other missions to Mars, including the Perseverance rover, which landed in February 2021.

“Curiosity served as, for lack of a better term, a proof of concept, or a trailblazer for Perseverance,” Harding said. “Perseverance is there to continue that mission to validate the findings, and Curiosity has instrumentation on board to help monitor the weather on Mars [and] understand the environment on the Martian surface.”

According to Harding, these two rovers have helped prove sophisticated missions to Mars are feasible, and NASA is likely to start sending more than just rovers to Mars in the future.

“So as you start to look ahead, well, what’s next is you want to send the human expedition to Mars,” Harding said. “Well, there’s a lot that we would need to understand so that we know what it is about the planet that we can exploit to serve a crew that we would send to the planet. What would be those things that we would need to bring in order to survive? Curiosity is a part of helping to address and answer some of those questions.”

Harding said this type of mission is still far out, with the next step being a successful rover return, but Curiosity’s findings have opened the door for human exploration on Mars.

“It is possible that in the foreseeable future with the generation of students that I have now in the next 20 to 30 years somebody should be able to conduct an interview with the first crew that has returned from the surface,” Harding said.

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