Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)
Instrument suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover combining a gas chromatograph, a quadrupole mass spectrometer, and a tunable laser spectrometer. Designed to analyze the chemical composition of Mars rocks, soils, and atmosphere. Built and led in part by the team at nasa-goddard, with jennifer-eigenbrode among the instrument-team co-leads.
Major findings
- Detected chlorobenzene and thiophenes in earlier mission years.
- Tracked seasonal methane variability in Gale Crater air.
- April 2026: a one-shot TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide) wet derivatization run on 2020 Glen Torridon mudstone yielded more than 20 organic molecules including a nitrogen-containing DNA-precursor-like compound and benzothiophene (src-curiosity-mars-life-molecules-2026-04). This was the first wet-chemistry experiment ever performed on another planet. SAM carried only ~two cups of TMAH, forcing a single high-stakes site selection.
The TMAH technique has been carried forward into ESA’s rosalind-franklin-rover and NASA’s dragonfly-mission (Titan).