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Sol 4553: Again to the Boxwork!
Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at College of New Brunswick
Earth planning date: Tuesday, Could 27, 2005
We return to planning as we speak after a profitable lengthy weekend and about 42 meters of drive distance (about 138 ft). We deliberate 4 sols of actions on Friday to maintain Curiosity busy, whereas the U.S.-based science staff and engineers took day without work yesterday for the Memorial Day vacation. As we received to admire the brand new workspace and drive path view in entrance of the rover this morning, I noticed that now we have now pushed about 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) and climbed greater than 850 meters (2,789 ft) in elevation since touchdown practically 13 years in the past, and we proceed to do thrilling science on Mars, having just lately pushed onto new terrain.
The so-called boxwork constructions are a collection of resistant ridges noticed each from orbit and in long-distance rover imaging (see Ashley’s weblog right here). Not solely are the ridges of curiosity (do they point out enhanced fluid-flow and cementation?), however the outcrop expression basically modified after we drove over a shallow trough onto the rocks that host the ridges.
This plan will proceed characterization of the attention-grabbing boxwork terrain. We had an instance of a extra resistant, ridge-like function in our workspace as we speak (see accompanying picture). The composition of the ridge will probably be investigated utilizing ChemCam (goal “Sisquoc River”) and APXS (goal “Palo Verde Mountains”), with accompanying Mastcam and MAHLI photos. We may even purchase Mastcam imaging of a trough-like function surrounding a bedrock slab, as a part of our ongoing documentation of such constructions, in addition to of an obvious resistant boxwork ridge within the distance (“Lake Cachuma”). And a primary for our mission, we’re planning the longest-distance ChemCam distant imaging mosaic that we’ll have acquired — 91 kilometers (virtually 57 miles) away! The intent is to check the long-distance view from the bottom with HiRISE orbital photos in an try to create a 3D view. We additionally managed to squeeze in a Navcam giant dust-devil survey earlier than the deliberate 24-meter drive (about 79 ft). As soon as we arrive at our new location, MARDI will take a picture of the terrain beneath the rover.
The plan is rounded out with the usual REMS, DAN and RAD actions.
