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Thursday was the last day of the MSL science team meeting, and the discussion shifted from science results to analysis of wheel wear, both on Mars and on Earth. The engineers at JPL have done a lot of testing in the Mars Yard and compared the results with the many images of the wheels on Mars. Although these images show that wheel wear continues, the damage is accumulating at a lower rate due to the changes in traverse planning that have been implemented in the past few months. Driving over rough terrain appears to be the most significant threat to the wheels, and efforts to recognize and avoid hazardous terrain using data returned by Mars orbiters have allowed safer drive paths to be chosen. It was clear that the engineers are not as concerned about wheel wear as they were last fall, and that they do not feel that wheel wear will limit the lifetime of rover mobility. This conclusion was based in part on tests in the JPL Mars Yard that showed that even very heavily damaged wheels performed well in climbing rocky and sandy slopes.
Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center