First Mode and Western Washington Univ. win NASA鈥檚 nod to make Mars geology tool
厂别补迟迟濒别鈥檚&苍产蝉辫; team and say they鈥檝e won a NASA contract to advance the technology for sizing up rocks on Mars.
The project, funded under NASA鈥檚 Solar System Workings program, will support the development of an automated tool known as a goniometer. Such a tool could be used on future Mars missions to measure angles precisely in three dimensions.
鈥淚f you used a protractor in grade school to measure angles, you used a simple version of a goniometer,鈥 First Mode鈥檚 Kathleen Hoza and Rhae Adams explained in a .
On Mars, such a device should facilitate spectral observations of rock samples at different angles, opening the way for more detailed chemical analyses. One of the cameras on NASA鈥檚 Curiosity rover .
Melissa Rice, a planetary scientist at Western Washington University, is principal investigator for the newly announced project.