Curiosity’s Drill After Drilling at ‘Telegraph Peak’

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rover's drill just after finishing a drilling operation at a target rock called "Telegraph Peak" on Feb. 24, 2015, the 908th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars. Three sols later, a fault-protection action by the rover halted a process of transferring sample powder that was collected during this drilling.

The image is in raw color, as recorded directly by the camera, and has not been white-balanced.

The fault-protection event, triggered by an irregularity in electrical current, led to engineering tests in subsequent days to diagnose the underlying cause.

Mastcam was built by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/.