Mars rover Curiosity is now autonomously selecting its targets to study with it’s laser and telescopic camera of the ChemCam instrument. Software on board the rover used the NavCam image to select the spot where it wanted the laser to be pointed by the ChemCam. This is the first time in any planetary exploration that this level of autonomy has been achieved during the field explorations.

Roger Wiens, principal investigator for ChemCam at Los Alamos is excited about the development. He says that this ability will allow them to cover even more soil and rock samples for study. The smart rover will no longer be dependent on the scientists sitting at home to pick out what samples it should study.

The target samples are chosen based on criteria that can be fixed in advance for the rover. The size or brightness of the rock can be some measures that are taken into consideration. The autonomous software is called AEGIS (Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) and was developed by engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This science project is going to make it much easier for scientists to get detailed studies of the Martian surface done, with less man hours going into it. Plus it is a good portent for things to come.