Finmeccanica chopper scam: CBI gets some documents from Italy

NEW DELHI: Moving forward in its probe into alleged kickbacks in the VVIP helicopter deal, the CBI has procured some documents from Italian authorities in Milan that may help it investigating whether any Indian had received bribes to swing the deal in favour of AgustaWestland.

Highly-placed sources in the probe agency said on Sunday that one of the members of the CBI team who returned this morning from Milan had got some of the documents from the Italian prosecutor regarding the controversial Rs 3,600 crore deal which would be examined in the next couple of days.

The sources said a preliminary enquiry(PE) would be initiated in the next couple of days after examining the documents received from the Italian authorities. It has been alleged that kickbacks to the tune of Rs 362 crore were allegedly paid to help secure the deal in favour of the Anglo-Italian firm.

While declining to reveal the nature of documents, the sources said prima-facie it seemed sufficient to initiate a PE against unknown persons since Italian authorities could share only these papers at this stage. The authorities have, however, promised to hand over other documents once their probe is completed.

One of the two CBI officers was still in Milan to take some more documents and would be arriving here on Monday, the sources said.

The CBI team is also pinning its hope on the assurance made by the Italian government-controlled Finmeccanica group, parent company of AgustaWestland helicopters, that it would provide assistance in probing bribery allegations against some Indian nationals.

During the meeting, CBI officials had requested the Italian firm to hand over the report of its internal probe to them so that it could be examined in India and a proper investigation could be conducted.

The CBI team along with officials from defence and external affairs ministry had also met senior officials of the Italian judiciary including the judge in the case to request for assistance in probing the role of Indians in connection with alleged kickbacks in the deal.

Some more assistance would be provided after the local elections in Italy would be over this week, the team was told besides been conveyed that that the probe in that country was at a preliminary stage.

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

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NASCAR: Daytona Race to Go On After Crash

Every seat will be filled at Daytona International Speedway today after a team worked overnight to repair a fence that was breached in a horrific crash that injured at least 28 spectators in the grandstands.

Joie Chitwood III, president of Daytona International Speedway, said his team met with NASCAR officials at 8 a.m. EST today to review the repairs, hours before 147,000 fans will fill the grandstand seats to watch the Daytona 500 race.

If fans are uneasy about their seating location today, Chitwood said his team would make "every accommodation we can" to move them.

PHOTOS: Crash at Daytona Sends Wreckage Into Stands

The track became a disaster scene on Saturday when 12 cars became tangled in a fiery crash during the final lap of the Nationwide race.

Pieces of rookie Kyle Larson's shredded race car turned into shrapnel that flew into the stands, injuring at least 28 people.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

RELATED: Fiery Daytona Crash Injures Fans

At least 14 of the injured were transported to hospitals and more than a dozen others were treated at the speedway, Chitwood said.

"I do know that we transported individuals from lower level and upper level [of the grandstands]," he said.

Terry Huckabee, who was sitting in the grandstands with his brother, compared the scene to a "war zone."

"I mean, tire flying by and smoke and everything else," he said.

Huckabee said his brother is recovering in the hospital after his leg was sliced open by the spray of debris.

The crash was apparently triggered when driver Regan Smith's car, which was being tailed by Brad Keselowski on his back bumper, spun to the right and shot up the track.

Smith had been in the lead and said after the crash he had been trying to throw a "block."

Larson's car slammed into the wall that separates the track from the grandstands, causing his No. 32 car to go airborne and erupt in flames.

When a haze of smoke cleared and Larson's car came to a stop, he jumped out uninjured.

His engine and one of his wheels were sitting in a walkway of the grandstand.

"I was getting pushed from behind," Larson told ESPN. "Before I could react, it was too late."

Tony Stewart pulled out the win, but in victory lane, what would have been a celebratory mood was tempered by concern for the injured fans.

"We've always known this is a dangerous sport," Stewart said. "But it's hard when the fans get caught up in it."

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Football: Berbatov's magic moment sinks Stoke

LONDON: Fulham forward Dimitar Berbatov produced a moment of magic to end his side's poor run with a 1-0 win over Stoke at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

Berbatov marked his 200th Premier League appearance with his 85th goal in the English top-flight and it was one of the former Manchester United star's best as he netted a superb volley just before half-time.

Martin Jol's team still needed a second half penalty save from Mark Schwarzer, who kept out Jon Walters' effort, to clinch just their fourth win in 19 Premier League games.

Berbatov and Schwarzer's heroics lifted Fulham to 11th, nine points clear of the relegation zone, and continued the away-day misery for Stoke, who have won just one in their last 23 leagues games on their travels.

Fulham's first sight of goal fell to Berbatov after Sascha Riether's cross picked out the Bulgarian forward for a close-range volley that looped just over.

Bryan Ruiz had the ball in the net moments later but Fulham's celebrations were cut short as referee Lee Probert correctly ruled that the Costa Rican forward had used his hand to score.

Steven Nzonzi needed treatment after a collision with Berbatov left the Stoke midfielder with blood dripping from the bridge of his nose.

Nzonzi still seemed miffed following that incident and he was fortunate to escape with a booking after cuffing Ruiz around the head in an off-the-ball incident.

A ferocious free-kick from Fulham's Greek midfielder Giorgos Karagounis brought the best save of the half from Asmir Begovic.

Stoke sent on American midfielder Brek Shea for his debut when Matthew Etherington hobbled off with a back injury.

Jol's team pushed on and finally broke the deadlock in first half stoppage-time when a cross was only half cleared to Berbatov, who showed superb technique to lash a brilliant volley into the top corner of Begovic's goal.

Fulham defender Philippe Senderos almost gifted Stoke an equaliser immediately after the interval when his attempt to shepherd the ball back to Schwarzer allowed Peter Crouch to nip ahead of him and flick a shot that the Australian saved well.

Schwarzer came to Fulham's rescue again in the 54th minute after Dejagah conceded a penalty when he blocked Shea's cross with his raised arms.

Walters stepped up to take the spot-kick, but the Stoke striker has a poor record with penalties this season and his luck was out again as Schwarzer dived to his right to save.

- AFP/fa

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Hyderabad blasts: PM to visit city tomorrow, cops get 'vital' clues

NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Hyderabad on Sunday to take stock of the situation in the aftermath of twin bomb blasts there.

Singh will visit the hospital where the injured are being treated besides taking a briefing from chief minister Kiran Reddy, sources said. Two bombs exploded within a span of minutes in Hyderabad on Thursday evening, killing 16 people and injuring 117.

'Vital clues'

Meanwhile, investigators on Saturday claimed to have got "vital clues" in the probe into the twin blasts in the city and were examining CCTV footage with the needle of suspicion zeroing in on banned militant outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM).

Police also announced Rs 10 lakh award for information leading to the perpetrators of Thursday's serial blasts that left 16 dead and 117 injured.

"We have already gathered vital clues in the case. We are confident we will crack the case soon," Andhra Pradesh home minister P Sabita Indra Reddy said after a high-level review meeting chaired by chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

The modus operandi adopted by the perpetrators like ammonium nitrate and splinters-laden aluminum containers fitted to bicycles used in the blasts were similar to the attacks carried out by Indian Mujahideen.

Without going into details, Hyderabad commissioner of police Anurag Sharma said, "We have some evidence, some clues".

"We have footage from the camera (at the blast site) which we are analysing it," he said while refuting media reports that CCTV wires had been cut by the terrorists before their operation.

He, however, admitted that out of 303 CCTVs in the city, 38 were not functioning.

The police commissioner said they had received an alert from Delhi on February 15 about possible strikes in Hyderabad and three other cities. "We did not take any warning lightly".

Asked about reports of arrests and detentions, he said, "We have not arrested anyone in this case. We are examining all types of evidences."

Asked about the involvement of IM, he said the investigations were underway. "Unless we complete the process, we cannot jump to any conclusion."

He said ammonium nitrate was used in the IEDs which had timers.

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

Read More..

Pistorius Family: 'Law Must Run Its Course'

South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius is spending time his family today after the athlete was freed on $113,000 bail Friday.

"We realise that the law must run its course, and we would not have it any other way," the Olympian's uncle, Arnold Pistorius said in a statement on Saturday.

The Pistorius family expressed their gratitude that the former Olympian was allowed out of jail before the trial.

"This constitutes a moment of relief under these otherwise very grave circumstances" said Arnold Pistorius."We are extremely thankful that Oscar is now home."

Pistorius, 26, is charged with premeditated murder in the Valentine's Day shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

While the prosecution argued that the world-renowned athlete was a flight risk and had a history of violence, South African Magistrate Desmond Nair, who presided over the case, disagreed.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscar Pistorius

"He regards South Africa as his permanent place of abode, he has no intention to relocate to any other country" Nair said during his two hour ruling, before concluding with, "the accused has made the case to be released on bail."

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

Pistoriuis will have to adhere to strict conditions to stay out of jail before the trial. He must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

Oscar Pistorius is believed to be staying at an uncle's house as he awaits trial.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

During the hearing, the prosecution argued that Pistorius shot Steenkamp after an argument, while the defense laid out an alternate version of events saying Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for an intruder.

Nair took issue with the head detective originally in charge of the case, who he said "blundered" in gathering evidence and was removed from the case after it was revealed he is facing attempted murder charges.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Lead Det. Hilton Botha to Be Booted From Investigation Team

After the magistrate's decision, cheers erupted in the courtroom from the Pistorius camp. Pistorius' trial is expected to start in six to eight months, with his next pre-trial court date in June.

Reeva Steenkamp Family Reaction

Steenkamp's father, Barry Steenkamp told the South African Beeld newspaper that the 26-year-old athlete will "suffer" if he is lying about accidentally shooting 29-year-old model.

PHOTOS: Oscar Pistorius Charged with Murder

Barry Steenkamp went on to say that the Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" if he intentionally shot Reeva.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WTO may not be ideal platform to deal with currency issue

BEIJING: The World Trade Organisation (WTO) may not be the ideal platform to deal with the issue of currency manipulation, according to Costa Rica's Foreign Trade Minister Anabel Gonzalez, who is in the running to be WTO Director-General.

She was in Beijing to meet Chinese authorities to garner their support.

As the global economy slows and countries scramble to boost exports, trade friction is likely to escalate.

That's particularly the case with the world's largest exporter and second largest trading nation -- China.

Competitors often point to China as unfairly subsidizing its exports via the undervalued yuan.

But Costa Rica's candidate for the top job at the WTO said the trade organization might not be equipped with the tools to tackle the issue.

Anabel Gonzalez said: "I would be cautious in terms of looking at it in the context of the WTO.

"This issue of exchange rates is normally associated with monetary policies, fiscal policies, financial policies, and in that regard I think there may be other venues that are better suited to deal with these issues, be it, meetings of central bankers, ministers of finance, the IMF, the G20."

In Beijing to gain support for her candidacy, Ms Gonzalez said China has achieved a huge transformation over the past decade.

However, trade reform is a long-term process. A recent report on China by the WTO noted a decrease in the number of state-owned enterprises. But still, a significant number of them remain, particularly in sectors regarded as vital to the national economy.

As China's goals change, placing priority on moving up the industrial value chain, liberalizing the market may take a backseat. For instance, state supported financing and cheap land may be seen as unfairly giving home-grown companies a leg up.

Costa Rica's foreign trade minister said: "Each country can, of course, decide what are the best actions and policy measures to continue to promote growth and development in its own country.

"From the perspective of WTO system, the important part is that this is done in a way that respects the rules and disciplines of the organization."

The Costa Rican is among nine candidates vying to succeed Pascal Lamy when he steps down as head of the WTO at the end of August.

- CNA/al

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Hyderabad blasts: Blame game over intelligence inputs, IM under scanner

HYDERABAD: A blame game over intelligence inputs erupted on after the twin bomb blasts here as the role of banned militant outfit Indian Mujahideen was being increasingly suspected by probe agencies who got some "leads". The death toll in the blasts in a crowded area at Dilsukhnagar on Thursday night rose to 16 with the number of injured being put at 117 even as the multi-agency investigative teams combed the blast sites at Dilsukhnagar rocked by near simultaneous explosions.

All but one of the dead were men. Eight CCTVs installed in the area were of no use for the investigators pinning hopes on them for evidence as they malfunctioned. Union home ministry sources denied that the CCTV wires were snapped by the perpetrators of the attack. Forensic experts who collected evidence from the blasts site submitted a preliminary report indicating that ammonium nitrate were used in the bombs, which were planted in tiffin boxes and fitted to two bicycles, police sources said.

"This is an explosive mix in which aluminum sharpeners were added to nails and iron pieces used to create more impact," a forensic expert noted. Investigators were also looking for a timer device. Cyberabad Police commissioner Dwaraka Tirumala Rao said they had gathered enough clues about those involved but added the information could not be divulged.

He denied having "detained" anyone in connection with the case. Nothing has been officially said but the accusing finger in the case is being pointed towards the IM that has an "established network" in Hyderabad.

The modus operandi in strapping improvized explosive device (IED) to bicycles was similar to blasts triggered by IM in the past. Hyderabad along with Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hubli were specifically alerted by the central security agencies about possible attacks by Pakistan-based terrorist groups to avenge the hanging of Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Apart from a general advisory sent to all states on February 19, Union home ministry officials said the specific information about possible attacks was shared with authorities in the four cities on Thursday morning. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said all states were alerted about a possible terror strike by militant groups.

However, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy had said those were general alerts which often keep coming from the Centre. It has also emerged that two of the alleged IM operatives arrested by Delhi Police for their involvement in Pune blasts last year did a recce of Dilsukhnagar on a motorcycle in July 2012.

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Meet One of Mars Rover Curiosity’s Earthbound Twins

Like its twin that's busy exploring Mars aboard the rover Curiosity, the device known as SAM II spends its days as if it were 200 million miles away, in a very different environment than our own.

Temperatures around the instrument plunge to minus 130ºF (-90°C), the air pressure is one percent of Earth's, and the atmosphere it sits in consists largely of carbon dioxide.

But this second SAM—short for Sample Analysis on Mars—resides in suburban Maryland, inside a tightly controlled chamber where it plays a little-known but essential role as a test instrument for the Curiosity mission to Mars. (Watch: How Curiosity took a self-portrait.)

And for a short time last month, this microwave-size "test bed" SAM was out of its deep freeze for repairs and upgrades, offering a rare peak into exactly what it takes to keep a rover and its scientific instruments alive and well on Mars.

Simply put, SAM is the most complex and sophisticated suite of scientific equipment to ever land on another celestial body.

The gold-covered box holds two tiny cylinder ovens that can vaporize Mars's rocks and soil at temperatures up to 1800°F (1,000 °C). Three instruments (spectrometers) then identify and analyze the gases produced by the ovens, as well as those collected from the Martian atmosphere. Some six miles (nine kilometers) of electrical wire connect these and many other parts together.

SAM's task constitutes a primary aim of Curiosity's mission: investigating whether Mars preserves the chemical ingredients needed for life, including organic carbon. (Related: Intriguing new evidence of a watery past on Mars.)

SAM has already analyzed some Martian soil and will very soon get its first taste of Martian rock, dug out with a drill last week and crushed into powder. A pre-programmed examination of that rock powder—a first-of-its-kind procedure—is scheduled to begin inside SAM shortly. (Related: Curiosity completes first full drill for Martian rock samples.

Maryland SAM in the Operating Room

But for the SAM on Mars to operate safely and properly, it needs the Maryland SAM (a 99 percent duplicate) as a test bed.

Every command sent to the instrument on Mars must first be run through the twin on Earth to make sure it doesn't confuse the operating system, doesn't open a wrong valve, doesn't set into motion a fatal cascade of events. So keeping the test-bed SAM in near-perfect shape is essential to Curiosity's success.

Yet some parts or connections have failed in recent months, requiring less-than-ideal workarounds. And when the SAM team recently devised additional ways to further improve their creation, they decided to bring it in for repairs.

Which is why test-bed SAM was out of its chamber last month, laid out on a gurney in a clean room at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Several days before, the liquid nitrogen piped into SAM II's chamber to keep it cold had been turned off. Myriad pipes and tubes going in were shut down. The near-vacuum pressure inside the chamber—which is the size of a washing machine and wrapped in aluminum foil—had been changed to Earth conditions.

The big chamber door (which would have exerted some 10,000 pounds, or about 4,500 kilograms, of force) was swung open.

SAM II's lustrous gold plating, needed to regulate temperatures and keep the instrument as clean as possible, had been removed, exposing the warren of intricately packed equipment and wiring inside.

In a Mylar-draped section of the room, two of the men who put both SAMs together were poking and prodding, vacuuming and tightening its insides. In their head-to-toe white cover-ups, they looked like surgeons in the OR.

One of them, Oren Sheinman, is a lead designer and builder of the two SAMs. His repair involved a heat pipe for the tunable laser spectrometer—an instrument Sheinman designed to sniff the Mars air for gases such as carbon-based methane, which could be a sign of past or present life.

Problems with SAM's heat pipe had made it difficult to ensure that the new computer instructions going up to Mars were accurate and effective, so Sheinman and colleague Bob Arvey had to find a work-around.

Speaking from behind the Mylar screen, Sheinman said that what they had created was actually similar to some spacecraft he had worked on. "Not in terms of guidance and propulsion," he said, "but in terms of system issues and sheer complexity."

"With SAM, the difficult part mechanically was packaging, because it isn't really an instrument, but an instrument suite," he said.

Discovery Requires Complexity

SAM was already the largest and heaviest instrument that Curiosity would carry, but it needed to be as small as possible to make room for Curiosity's other equipment.

Fortunately, the hardware Sheinman was working on sat near the outside of the SAM configuration; fixing a piece deeper inside would have required what he called an "excavation."

For Arvey, the primary repair job involved his specialty, the miles of wire. Because SAM has high-temperature wires to supply the ovens and low temperature wires for the instruments, all the wiring had to be crimped together rather than connected with welds.

One of those crimps, or "getters," had failed some time ago, and it too had to be replaced.

Arvey said he needed all of his 40-plus years of experience in wiring space-bound equipment (to Venus, Jupiter, Titan, and Mars) to lay out the electrical rigging of SAM.

"Everything we did in building SAM had to be made up new," he said.

It was SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy who decided to open up the chamber, and he says his rationale was more improvement than repair.

While the several malfunctioning parts were making life difficult, his primary goal was to better stabilize the test-bed SAM so the team could send up commands that would allow Mars SAM to make more sensitive measurements.

Curiosity is a "discovery-driven" mission, Mahaffy said, and that means demands placed on the faraway rover and its instruments are ever changing.  The result is a constant process of tweaking, upgrading and modifying as scientists and engineers learn about Mars and look to devise ways to follow new leads.

Everyone Needs a Test Bed

The Goddard test bed is hardly the only one used for Curiosity.

The home institutions of the principal investigator for all ten Curiosity instruments have their test beds, and their results have to be squared with the entire Curiosity system, headquartered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

JPL has its "Mars yard," where duplicate Curiosity rovers are put through their paces—everything from climbing a steep incline to approaching and drilling a rock.

Using the drill, for instance, involves more than a hundred discrete commands, and they have been put through their paces at the yard in advance of Curiosity's first ever Mars drilling.

"It's kind of unexpected and occasionally funny, but the test beds tend to come up with more problems than the actual equipment on Mars," said Curiosity mission manager Michael Watkins.

Since the equipment and instruments are virtual duplicates, Watkins said it's not an issue of quality. Rather, problems arise because the equipment is made to operate under Mars atmospheric and gravity conditions, which are difficult to entirely reproduce on Earth.

The test equipment is also used far more frequently and aggressively than what's on the actual Curiosity.

The constant testing slows a mission down at times, and after six months on Mars the rover has traveled only about a quarter mile, or less than half a kilometer.

But it has been a productive trip. Since landing on Mars in early August, Curiosity has identified a once fast-flowing stream bed on the planet, found tantalizing but unconfirmed signs of organic materials, and has drilled into low-lying bedrock and found grey (rather than the usual Martian red) rock inside.

The rover's travels on Mars are officially set to continue until the summer of 2014, but if Curiosity and its instruments remain healthy, all involved expect it will operate for several years beyond that.

With that kind of time frame in mind, the SAM team recently arranged to have its busy test bed moved to a building that has a supply of liquid nitrogen just outside a back door.

Before that, researchers and technicians had to roll large, heavy canisters of the gas long distances into a different test room. Hardly ideal for a test bed that's likely to be busy for a long time to come.

Marc Kaufman is working on a book about Curiosity and Mars for National Geographic Books.

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