But NASA's Curiosity Mars rover spent the end of April embroiled in a much simpler problem: It got stuck in a rock. Curiosity's woes began on April 25 when it drilled into a 28-pound rock NASA nicknamed Atacama.

On April 25, NASA’s Curiosity rover drilled into a Mars rock nicknamed ‘Atacama’. Instead of breaking apart cleanly during sampling, the rock remained attached to the rover’s drill sleeve as it lifted its robotic arm.

The Mars Curiosity Rover has been doing experiments on the Red Planet since 2012, and while doing some drilling, managed to get itself a little bit stuck

NASA’s Curiosity rover got stuck in a rock, and consequently found itself in a hard place. Last month, the Mars robot was drilling into a rock sample using its robotic arm, as is routine in its scientific investigations.

It took a week of waving the arm on which the drill was mounted for the rogue rock to finally drop back to the Martian surface.

NASA’s space scientists had a challenge when a large rock remained on the drill of the Curiosity Mars rover after an exploratory incision. It took a week of waving the arm on which the drill was

Mars has intense radiation, furious dust storms, and temperatures that plunge as low as -200 degrees Fahrenheit (-129 degrees Celsius) — and NASA's Mars rovers usually handle them all with aplomb. But Curiosity had a little hiccup last month.

New footage shows NASA's Curiosity rover tilting, rotating and vibrating its robotic arm as mission scientists tried to remove a rock, dubbed Atacama, that became stuck on a drill for six days.