Mars Rover Curiosity plans to head east in order to gather its first measurements, and then it will go to Mount Sharp to map out Mars’ geological history.

Washington University professor Ray Arvidson and third year graduate student Abigail Fraeman are currently working with NASA and about 400 scientists to help Curiosity complete its mission of evaluating the soil and determining whether life is sustainable on Mars.

Arvidson is back on campus for two weeks to begin teaching before he returns to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles to continue working while teaching remotely.

“Most NASA employees are engineers, so they often pull from universities for projects like this,” Arvidson said.

While there, Arvidson, Fraeman and the other scientists operate according to Mars’ schedule. A Mars day is equal to 24 hours and 39.6 minutes. During Martian nights, the scientists make programs for Curiosity to execute during the morning hours, and by afternoon, they get the day’s data reports.

As a member of the Science Operations Team, Fraeman has the opportunity to share hypotheses and have discussions with other scientists from around the globe.

“I spend half the time helping the Science Team discussions and getting to figure out what data we want to collect—so what rocks we want to take pictures of, what rocks we want to shoot with a laser, which is an instrument called ChemCam,” Fraeman said.

ChemCam is a built-in feature of Curiosity that involves a process called remote chemistry. The rover gathers rock powder and soil by drilling into the ground, collecting samples and then placing them inside itself for analysis. It also takes photographs of Mars’ surface.

“We’re the first people of all the humans to see these pictures and places of Mars that have never been seen before, so that’s pretty amazing,” Fraeman said.

As Curiosity drives, information such as how it’s tilted and how much power the wheels need to keep rotating, is recorded. That information, coupled with pictures, lets the scientist know much about the terrain of Mars, like how soft the soil is and how slippery the rocks are.

“What we’re doing is using the whole vehicle as a science instrument,” Arvidson said. “It’s so big and complicated that we’re still checking out things, making sure everything works.”

The satellites currently in orbit above Mars can detect minerals. Arvidson is helping NASA direct the rover toward minerals of interest based on their images.

Although Curiosity cannot detect life, it can see if Mars possesses organic materials or water-bearing minerals and can analyze them to help reconstruct the past. With this data, scientists can address questions such as the past pH or even the temperature of the water.

Scientists like Fraeman and Arvidson will continue to analyze the surface of Mars and the data sent back to Earth using the technology built into Curiosity in an effort to better understand the history and makeup of the Red Planet.