The long awaited and history making first use of a drill on Mars is set to happen on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, or Sol 174, by NASA’sCuriosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover, if all goes well, according to science team member Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS.
Curiosity’s first drilling operation entails hammering a test hole into a flat rock at the location where the rover is currently parked at a scientifically interesting outcrop of rocks with veined minerals called ‘John Klein’.