MARS: CURIOSITY u krateru GALE

Parcijalna ..

Prikaz svih trenutnih  aktivnosti NASA-e u svemiru, s očekivanim događajima u ovoj godini. 

Sol 1310: Good morning Mars!

12 April 2016

Well, that was an early morning! I was on duty as the KOP today and we started at 6:30 am, so I was up and looking at new pictures of Mars before sunrise. Normally I would not be happy about getting up so early, but I reminded myself this morning that getting to help run a nuclear-powered laser-wielding robot on Mars is worth losing a little bit of sleep every once in a while!
Our drive finally went according to plan, bringing us a bit closer to the edge of the Naukluft plateau. We plan to continue driving today and tomorrow, aiming to get within reach of some interesting large fractures that we can see in the orbital data to do contact science over the weekend. There are also some tantalizing outcrops coming up that should give us nice views of the stratigraphy of the Stimson unit, but they are not quite visible yet.
We are only expecting to get a small amount of data downlinked before tomorrow, so we kept today’s plan for Sol 1310 nice and simple. In the morning, we have a ChemCam observation and Mastcam documentation of a nearby alteration halo around a fracture, followed by a small Mastcam mosaic of a similar bright halo and fracture at a location we are calling “Oswater”. After that, Curiosity will drive for about 20 meters and we will collect our standard post drive imaging.
by Ryan Anderson
-Ryan is a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL.

Put za sigurno prečkanje  doline je konačno pronađen...

sol 1310....preko vode do slobode.  

Sol 1311...novih cca 18,5 m...mic po mic.
Smjer W (prema zapadu).

Ovakva vožnja uz rub provalije je veoma opasna. Zaigrala se djeca...

Fracture Town...haha, ovi se znaju šalit...Uostalom, sve je moguće.

Sol 1311: Take Me To Fracture Town

13 April 2016

Today I was on duty as KOP again, but we got to sleep in: we started at 7 am instead of 6:30!
Curiosity is in good shape and our drive was successful. In the Sol 1311 plan, we have ChemCam observations of the targets “Garnet Koppie”, “Amspoort”, “Soutrivier”, and “Uubvley”. Garnet Koppie and Amspoort will allow us to compare the composition of a bright fracture halo and the nearby bedrock, Soutrivier is targeting a small white vein, and Uubvley is a fin of material sticking up near a large fracture. ChemCam also has a long distance RMI observation of the Peace Vallis channel off to the north. We talked a lot about possible places to image with Mastcam, but decided that we will have a better view of everything of interest after another drive or two, so Mastcam just has documentation images of the ChemCam targets.
After the targeted observations, we have a short drive to put the rover in a better position to see the terrain in front of it. This will allow us to drive into the area with large fractures visible from orbit, which we have started informally calling “Fracture Town” but which will probably get a more official name soon.
The plan finished with some early morning atmospheric observations on Sol 1312, including a ChemCam passive sky observation, Mastcam observation of the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and Navcam movies to watch for clouds.
by Ryan Anderson
-Ryan is a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL.

Sol 1312: The best laid plans…

14 April 2016

The original plan for today included an ~11 m drive to get closure to a fracture in the Stimson formation.  However, during science discussion, the team talked further about how to best sample both altered and unaltered Stimson bedrock, and realized that some of the best places to accomplish the proposed sampling were likely behind us!  As a result of this discussion, the drive in today’s plan was pulled at the last minute.
So the modified plan for Sol 1312 includes several ChemCam and Mastcam observations to assess the composition of both altered and unaltered Stimson bedrock, and Mastcam imaging to document the fractures that run through the outcrop.  We won’t drive, but we’ll still take images to set us up for contact science and remote sensing in the weekend plan.  Talk about late-breaking science!
By Lauren Edgar
--Lauren is a Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the MSL science team.

Murray Buttes na vidiku? Tako mi izgleda, ali nisam posve siguran...