Screen capture from JPL's mission map, the yellow line is the traverse on Sol 1363
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
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Curiosity Rover - Sol 4398 L-MastCam Workspace (Bayer reconstructed) Assembled in MS-ICE
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk
Drive data from JPL's JSON URLs (updated after each drive)
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
New vista after a 24.6 m / 81 ft drive to the north on sol 1363 (December 20, 2024). Roughly processed 4-tile L-NavCam looking NbW from site 64. 2278. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Rover Mission Update
Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
Earth planning date: Wednesday, December 18, 2024
It’s almost holiday time, and preparations are going ahead on Earth and Mars! For myself that means having a packed suitcase sitting behind me to go on my holiday travels tomorrow morning. For Curiosity that means looking forward to a long semi-rest, as we will not do our usual planning for the geology and mineralogy, but will still be monitoring the atmospheric conditions throughout. Today should have been a normal planning day with lots of contact and remote science. Well, Mars had other ideas.
The regular readers of this blog know that we are driving through quite difficult terrain. The image above gives a good impression on what the rover is dealing with: lots of rocks embedded in sand. I think even hiking would be quite difficult there, let alone driving autonomously. Curiosity, thanks to our excellent rover drivers, makes it successfully most of the time, but here and there Mars just doesn’t play nice. Thus, the rover stopped after 14 meters (about 46 feet) of a planned much longer drive. One of the wheels had caught a low spot between two rocks, and — safety first — the rover stopped and waited for our assessment. The rover drivers found no major problem, as it’s just the middle wheel that hit a bit of a rough patch, and driving can continue in this plan. But better safe than sorry, especially on another planet where there are no tow trucks to get us out of difficulty!
There was, however, quite a bit of discussion before we decided that course of action. Not because of the wheels themselves, but because the rover also stands in a position where it can only communicate directly with Earth in limited ways as the antenna is not facing the expected direction after the sudden stop. Of course, we still have the orbiters to talk to our rover, so we know it’s all fine. And — all things are three — this all happened on the penultimate plan of the year! Friday we’ll be planning a large set of sols that the rover will be executing on its own on Mars, monitoring the atmosphere and taking regular images of its surroundings, while the Earth-based team enjoys the well-deserved break. We really want to make sure to have everything going right on a day like today, so we all can enjoy the holidays without worrying about the rover!
With today being the last day of normal science planning, we had lots of ideas, but had to keep the arm stowed. The drive fault also meant that we had to forego arm movements, as the rover was sitting on a few rocks, and one of the wheels in that little depression that stopped us, all in ways that meant that a shift of rover weight (such as occurs when we move the arm) could make the rover move. Avoiding this situation, the team kept the arm stowed and focused on remote observations today. ChemCam observes a vein target called “Monrovia Peak” and takes remote images on the target “Jawbone Canyon” and up Mount Sharp toward the yardang unit. Mastcam looks at the target “Circle X Ranch” to investigate the material around the rocks embedded in the sand, looks at “Anacapa Island,” which is a vein target, “Channel Islands,” which is an aeolian ripple, and target “Gould Mesa,” which gets the team especially excited as this is the first glimpse of the so-called boxwork structures, which we saw from orbit even before Curiosity landed. Finally, we drive away from the spot that held us up today. Let’s hope Mars has read the script this time!
For the looooong break, we are planning autonomous and remote investigations only, and this starts before Friday’s planning, so that we know all is ok! Thus, the other three sols in today’s planning have Aegis, the automated ChemCam LIBS observation, a Mastcam 360° mosaic, and many, many atmospheric observations. It’s going to be a feast for DAN, REMS, and generally the atmospheric science on Mars, while here on Earth we enjoy the treats of the season. The Curiosity team hopes you do, too. See you in 2025!
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
Source for this blog and the archive of all blogs (with all the links and the original raw images etc) https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4398-4401-holidays-ahead-rocks-under-the-wheels/
These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Dec 19, 2024 - Mission Update: Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
(science.nasa.gov)
Data for the drive on sol 1362. Data extracted from JPLs JSON URLs
Screen capture of the post-drive traverse map
Drive to the North on Sol 1362.
This post-drive L-NavCam is roughly assembled / cropped from 6 tiles, is looking South
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover abrades rocks using a tool on its robotic arm before drilling them in order to clear away dust and weathering rinds, allowing other instruments to study the rocks and determine if scientists want to grab a sample of them. In this case after studying this patch the team decided not to take a sample at this stage, and have just driven away from the location. This could be because they have a limited supply of empty sample tubes, and they want to check the region thoroughly before deciding which targets to obtain a rock core for sample return.
Sol 1362 - They just drove away, >80 meters north (guess). So no sample here (yet) :)
Yes, there are avalanches on Mars, they have imaged the aftermath of rock, dust and ice block slides on Mars, they've even imaged clouds of dust kicked up just after rock slides. These were images by the MRO (orbiter) HiRISE camera
The rover has just completed a drive to a new location on sol 1362 (December 19, 2024)
We have a few post-drive images, but not the full set it normally acquires. Here is one of the partial images (missing one tile) that shows the wheel tracks to the south and the rover looking West-Southwest. There is a projected path the rover is destined to traverse, but the mission is science led, and they often divert off the notional paths that they have published. The next drive should be West towards a science waypoint they have dubbed 'Witch Hazel Hill'. Watch this space in the next day or so and you'll find an updated map showing the rover's location and its latest post-drive photos
From what I understand water ice feels most likely, CO2 ice usually forms at much higher altitudes where we see the noctilucent clouds after sunset.
The speed the clouds are passing (see the timestamps) I'm assuming they are probably not at the elevation where we see CO2 clouds, but that's just a feeling
I've read research that point to the water ice crystals seeding on minute grains of dust suspended in the atmosphere, so there could be some dust in the cloud as well.
I recall previous clouds observed by Curiosity being posted by JPL that were said to be water ice based on the altitude of the clouds which they had deduced from the windspeed
I've looked at the later images acquired on the same sol, even those looking at the crater rim wall (link) and I see no evidence of elevated dust levels (compared with earlier sols), so I feel they are probably just early morning water ice clouds just rolling on by :)
Animated clouds - Sol 4396 / December 18 2024 Right Navigation Camera Processed by J Roger (Landru79)
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger (Landru79) Source
24
1361 - WATSON image of a section of the abrasion patch (patch diameter = 5cm / 2 inches)
(lemmy.world)
Sol 1361: WATSON Camera (Raw colour) acquired on Dec. 18, 2024 at the local mean solar time of 12:42:15.
Interestingly the patch shows no tool marks from the abrasion bit
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
I guess it would make more sense to do a little walkabout before thinking about taking another core. It's not like there is a rush with MSR on the way to Mars to collect the samples...
4394 - 5 of 5 - Checking out the rocks at the base of Texoli Butte using Curiosity's R-MastCam. This is a set of crops from a large 18 frame mosaic acquired on sol 4394 (December 16, 2024) that was too large to post here. The base images have all been Bayer reconstructed, then mosaiced using MS-ICE. Post assembly processing was completed in PhotoScape. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk
4394 - 4 of 5 - Checking out the rocks at the base of Texoli Butte using Curiosity's R-MastCam. This is a set of crops from a large 18 frame mosaic acquired on sol 4394 (December 16, 2024) that was too large to post here. The base images have all been Bayer reconstructed, then mosaiced using MS-ICE. Post assembly processing was completed in PhotoScape. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk
4394 - 3 of 5 - Checking out the rocks at the base of Texoli Butte using Curiosity's R-MastCam. This is a set of crops from a large 18 frame mosaic acquired on sol 4394 (December 16, 2024) that was too large to post here. The base images have all been Bayer reconstructed, then mosaiced using MS-ICE. Post assembly processing was completed in PhotoScape. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk
Interesting stuff.
Hopefully the team will release early test results on this patch :)
Time for a sample? :)
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Probably not too difficult to harvest atmospheric water vapor in small quantities, but to do it on an industrial scale may require a lot of energy.
There are some spectacular NavCam raw frames just arrived of more clouds in Gale on sols 4398 and 4399... T'is the season LINK