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August 13th, 2015
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 August 12, 2015, Sol 1072 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Wheeling its way across Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover traveled some 115 feet (35 meters) on sol 1072.
Rover planners are set to take a load of new mast camera (Mastcam) images on Sol 1073 to document geology at its new locale.
According to Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona: “We are planning a 31×1 mosaic of the outcrop in Marias Pass, plus a 13×3 mosaic of “Mt. Shields” (not to be confused with Mt. Sharp!) and a 10×3 stereo mosaic of “Gunton.”
Anderson adds that the schedule also calls for an “active” measurement with the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument. The device will produce neutrons to help detect hydrogen in the subsurface, rather than relying on natural background neutrons.
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1067 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (August, 07, 2015).
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (~0.62 mile). From Sol 1066 to Sol 1067, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 57.32 feet (17.47 meters).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
DSN outage
Word is that last weekend there was an outage at the Deep Space Network, the communication connection to Curiosity.
That outage on Earth prevented the plan for the weekend from being sent to the rover.
Curiosity was in “runout” mode, making routine environmental monitoring measurements and waiting patiently for more instructions, Anderson explains.
Problem fixed and the machinery is now making tracks on Mars.
This image was taken by Mastcam: Right onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on August 11th, Sol 1071.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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