[meteorite-list] Long Drive Puts NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Near Planned Waypoint

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201309101804.r8AI4Ak5027054_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-273

Long Drive Puts NASA Mars Rover Near Planned Waypoint
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 10, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity now has a view of a
patch of exposed bedrock scientists selected for a few days of close-up
study, the first such study since the rover began its long trek to Mount
Sharp two months ago.

Curiosity reached the crest of a rise informally called "Panorama
Point." From Panorama Point, the rover took photographs of a pale-toned
outcrop area that the team chose earlier as "Waypoint 1" on the basis of
imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Five selected waypoints dot the mission's route southwestward from the
"Glenelg" area, where Curiosity worked during the first half of 2013,
and an entry point to the lower layers of Mount Sharp, the mission's
next major destination. Waypoint 1 lies about one-fifth of the way along
the approximately 5.3-mile (8.6-kilometer) route, as plotted from
examining orbiter images.

Curiosity advanced 464 feet (141.5 meters) on Sept. 5 in the longest
one-day drive so far in the 13-month-old mission. The drive toward the
elevated Panorama Point combined two segments. For a long initial
segment, engineers chose the path from images examined on Earth ahead of
time. That was followed by a 138-foot (42-meter) segment, for which the
rover autonomously navigated its own path based on images taken during
the day's drive. That Sept. 5 drive plus the next one -- 80 feet (24.3
meters) on Sept. 8 -- brought the rover to the top of Panorama Point.

For the Sept. 5 drive, "we had a long and unobstructed view of the hill
we needed to climb, which would provide an overlook of the first major
waypoint on our trek to Mount Sharp," said Jeff Biesiadecki, a rover
planner on the Curiosity team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. "We were able to extend the drive well beyond what we
could see by enabling the rover's onboard hazard avoidance system."

In the Glenelg area, Curiosity accomplished the mission's major science
goal by finding evidence of an ancient environment favorable for
microbial life. The evidence came from analysis of rock powder drilled
from two outcrops in a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." When
the rover examines multiple rock layers of Mount Sharp, researchers hope
to learn more about ancient habitable environments and major changes in
environmental conditions.

"We want to know how the rocks at Yellowknife Bay are related to what
we'll see at Mount Sharp," said the mission's project scientist, John
Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "That's
what we intend to get from the waypoints between them. We'll use them to
stitch together a timeline -- which layers are older, which are younger."

The science team is using images taken from Panorama Point to select
precisely where to pause for a few days and use instruments on
Curiosity's arm to examine Waypoint 1. The rock targets being considered
are still about 245 feet (75 meters) southwest of Curiosity's Sept. 9
position.

The trek to Mount Sharp will continue for many months after the planned
work at Waypoint 1.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity
rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook
at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2013-273
Received on Tue 10 Sep 2013 02:04:10 PM PDT