Installing SAM instrument on Mars rover

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will examine samples of Martian rocks, soil, and atmosphere for information about chemicals that are important to life and other chemical indicators about past and present environments, NASA says.

The SAM instrument includes a mass spectrometer built by NASA Goddard, a gas chromatograph contributed by France's national space agency, and a laser spectrometer built by JPL.

Robotic arms will deliver drilled rock and soil samples to 74 on-board sample cups, heating samples to about 1,000 degrees Celsius in its two ovens.