Mars explorers are at risk of self-destruction

NASA's Curiosity can destroy its own electrical system right after activating an integrated drill to dig a Martian rock sample.

NASA has officially acknowledged this risk, adding that the fault of the drill has been known even before Curiosity left Earth. However, due to too late detection, the Jet Engine group was forced to implement a last-minute situation solution.

According to Space.com, a link inside the ship's drilling mechanism could be broken and cause short-circuiting. In the worst case scenario, the entire Curiosity computer system may be corrupted.

'Unless we fix it, the entire ship will be busted by the drill,' warned Chief Engineer Rob Manning of the Curiosity project.

It is possible that this vulnerability cannot affect the Curiosity's two-year official discovery of Mars, but no one can predict what will happen when this term ends. NASA had been so excited about Curiosity's early achievements that the agency intended to continue to maintain its operation 'as long as possible'. Boring bugs are a key factor in that intention, since Curiosity is capable of digging up to 2.54cm into the Martian rock base.

Currently, Curiosity is only collecting samples of Mars surface so it has not used drill bits. NASA intends to deploy the drill before the end of the year when it finds the right scene.

At the time when the Curiosity team found that the drilling error was too fast, replacing the new drilling mechanism was too late. Therefore, engineers can only install a safety net to ensure that the ship's main power source is not affected.

The ship worth $ 2.5 billion Curiosity landed on the Gale deep hole on Mars on August 5, carrying the mission to determine whether microbial life existed on the red planet.