<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; "></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">"PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has placed its drill onto a series of four locations on a Martian rock and pressed down on it with the rover's arm, in preparation for using the drill in coming days. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The rover carried out this "pre-load" testing on Mars yesterday (Jan. 27). The tests enable engineers to check whether the amount of force applied to the hardware matches predictions for what would result from the commanded motions.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The next step is an overnight pre-load test, to gain assurance that the large temperature change from day to night at the rover's location does not add excessively to stress on the arm while it is pressing on the drill. At Curiosity's work site in Gale Crater, air temperature plunges from about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius) in the afternoon to minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 65 degrees Celsius) overnight. Over this temperature swing, this large rover's arm, chassis and mobility system grow and shrink by about a tenth of an inch (about 2.4 millimeters), a little more than the thickness of a U.S. quarter-dollar coin."</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">To follow the Mars Curiosity rover and NASA on Foursquare, visit: <a href="http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosity"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(2, 30, 170); ">http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosity</span></a> and <a href="http://www.foursquare.com/NASA"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(2, 30, 170); ">http://www.foursquare.com/NASA</span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">For information about NASA's partnership with Foursquare, visit:</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(2, 30, 170); "><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html">http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html</a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; color: #000000">."</span></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; "></span></div></body></html>