Deep drilling for Mars

Roam Mars, find an interesting spot and drill deeper than any other rover has before, about 25 times deeper. ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover twin is testing its drilling potential on a martian-like terrain to simulate the unearthing of signs of life on the Red Planet.

This is not the first, but the third time the test rover reaches the 1.7-metre-deep mark. Engineers call the wheeled laboratory Amalia, a name borrowed from renowned aerospace engineer Amalia Ercoli Finzi, and they use it to recreate what Rosalind Franklin will do on the Red Planet.

The rover’s deep drilling action happened last February. Amalia took its time to perforate a well filled with soil – soft silica on the surface, followed by layers of sand and fine volcanic soil, all of them resembling what Rosalind the rover will encounter under the martian surface.

The ExoMars drill relies on an automated choreography of tools and rods. The drill deploys and retracts to form a ‘drill string’ of up to two metres of length.

The depth is dictated by the mission scientists’ wish list – the research community wants to dig deep to access well-preserved organic material from four billion years ago, when conditions on the surface of Mars were more like those on infant Earth.

On day three of the test excavation, the drill stretched almost to its maximum and reached its target – a gypsum mineral from the Turin region, commonly found in sedimentary deposits linked to water.

The drill acquired a sample in the shape of a pellet of about 1 cm in diameter, brought it to the surface and delivered it to the laboratory that is inside the rover’s belly. During the whole operation, Amalia sent scientific data to the Rover Operations Control Centre (ROCC), the operational hub that will orchestrate the roaming of the European-built rover on Mars.

In the tests that followed, the science team had to come up with a plan for the next sol, or martian day, to command the rover’s actions. In addition to analysing the mix of data from the drilling operations, they worked with data from other Mars-like samples and images of the sample and the drilling spot.

If you are curious about the status of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission, visit this page with frequently asked questions and follow us on @ESA_ExoMars.

The drill was developed by the Italian company Leonardo, while Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor for ExoMars.