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Sol 952: Longer drive

MSL drove 18 meters on Sol 951, as planned, putting the rover in position to image the terrain ahead and plan a longerdrive on Sol 952.


MSL drove 18 meters on Sol 951, as planned, putting
the rover in position to image the terrain ahead and plan a longer
drive on Sol 952. The total "wheel odometry" for the MSL mission is now over 10 km! But the total traverse distance is still less than 10 km, because the wheels sometimes slip while driving, and the wheel odometry does not take slippage into account. So we're not quite ready to celebrate like the Mars Exploration project did when Opportunity recently completed the first extraterrestrial marathon . The focus of scientific observation planning has been
to get good images of the terrain as we continue
driving, and before the Sol 952 drive the ChemCam RMI and Mastcam
stereo cameras will image various targets near and far. Almost 100
meters of driving is planned, with the rover initially going to the
right around the ripples shown here . After the drive, in
addition to the normal images of the terrain near the rover, the Left
Mastcam will acquire a full 360-degree panorama. It was an easy day for
me as MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead, with only the
normal post-drive images in the plan. by Ken Herkenhoff
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.

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center

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Last Updated
Oct 29, 2024

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