NASA's Curiosity Rover Unexpectedly Uproots Rock During Drill On Mars

In a rare and unusual moment during a space mission, a Mars rover faced an unexpected challenge when a rock got stuck to its drill. The incident, involving Curiosity rover, showed how engineers worked step by step to solve the problem on the surface of Mars, reported NASA.

A series of images captured the entire process as the rover tried to free the rock. The visuals were taken by black-and-white hazard cameras on the front of Curiosity's chassis and navigation cameras on its mast, or head. The images showed how the rover waved its robotic arm and ran the drill multiple times before finally detaching the rock.

On April 25, 2026, Curiosity drilled a sample from a rock nicknamed Atacama. The rock is estimated to be about 1.5 feet in diameter at its base, around 6 inches thick and weighs roughly 28.6 pounds or 13 kilograms. When the rover retracted its arm, the entire rock lifted out of the ground and remained stuck to the drill sleeve that surrounds the rotating drill bit. While drilling has fractured rocks before, a rock has never remained attached to the drill sleeve in this way.

The team first tried vibrating the drill to shake off the rock, but this did not work. On April 29, they reoriented the robotic arm and vibrated the drill again. Finally, on May 1, the team tilted the drill more, rotated and vibrated it, and spun the drill bit. They had planned to repeat these steps several times, but the rock came off during the first attempt and broke apart as it hit the ground.

The rover was built by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The laboratory leads the mission on behalf of NASA Science Mission Directorate as part of NASA Mars Exploration Program.