paulhammond5155

15 de-Bayered L-MastCam images assembled in MS-ICE

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

A new 5cm diameter abrasion patch imaged with the SHERLOC WATSON camera from different distances. We can see some chipping of the target in the second image. Hopefully the fragile rock won't cause issues if they decide to attempt to core here. The images were acquired earlier today (April 12, 2025, Sol 1473 at site 72.0). I've stretched the contrast a little to highlight the textures. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm, on April 9, 2025, Sol 4505 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, at 00:56:30 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems

Earth planning date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Our drive from Monday’s plan was mostly successful, putting us ~22 meters down the “road” out of an expected 30 meters. A steering command halted the drive a little short when we tried to turn-in-place but instead turned into a rock, which also had the effect of making our position too unstable for arm activities. Oh well! APXS data has been showing the recent terrain as being pretty similar in composition, so the team isn’t complaining about trying again after another drive. Plus, keeping the arm stowed should give us a little more power to play with in the coming sols (an ongoing struggle this Martian winter).

Recently, my job on Mastcam has been to make sure our science imaging is as concurrent as possible with required rover activities. This strategy helps save rover awake time, AKA power consumption. Today we did a pretty good job with this, only increasing the total awake time by ~2 minutes even though we planned 52 images! Our imaging today included a mosaic of the “Devil's Gate” ridge including some nodular bedrock and distant “Torote Bowl,” a mosaic of a close-by vein network named “Moonstone Beach,” and several sandy troughs surrounding the bedrock blocks we see here.

ChemCam is planning a LIBS raster on a vertical vein in our workspace named “Jackrabbit Flat,” and a distant RMI mosaic of “Condor Peak” (a butte to the north we’re losing view of). Our drive will happen in the 1400 hour on the first sol, hopefully landing us successfully 53 meters further into this new valley on our way to the boxwork structures to the west! Post-drive, we’re including a test of a “Post Traverse Autonav Terrain Observation” AKA PoTATO - an easy drop-in activity for ground analysis of a rover-built navigation map of our new terrain. Plus we get to say PoTATO a lot.

Mosaic of R-NavCam images processed by Kevin M Gill

Attached is a roughly processed / cropped post-drive L-NavCam composite image from 6 tiles, the drive data, and screen capture of the updated mission map. The traverse distance was 14.5 meters (47.5 ft) due west. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA.

Processing by Kevin Gill NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/K.Gill

Source https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54442214372_923410b165_o.jpg

Right side Mast Camera (full zoom 110mm)

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

This image was taken by MAST_RIGHT onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4505 (2025-04-08T17:24:44.000Z)

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

The main image is a post drive 4-tile NavCam image acquired just after local noon. Below is the drive data extracted from JPL's M2020 JSON URL

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Full size Source:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/54437001585/

A drive by Perseverance rover took it to site 71.696 during Sol 1468 (April 7, 2025) The attached image is one of the end-of-drive navigation camera 4-tile composite images. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

I'll post the map and JSON data in the comments of this post as soon as JPL release it