NASA | Meet the SAM Team: Dan Carrigan

Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a suite of instruments developed for use on the Mars Science Laboratory. By looking for evidence of water, carbon, and other important building blocks of life in the Mars soil and atmosphere, this suite will help answer one of humankind's biggest questions about the planet: did it ever support life? This video profiles Dan Carrigan, the engineer primarily responsible for building SAM's QMS, or Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer. QMS's purpose is to break down the Mars atmosphere and vaporized soil into their components and help scientists identify what those components are.