Wheel update on Curiosity
Readers!
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Periodically, the Curiosity science team stops from its research to reassess the condition of the rover’s wheels. To do this they use the rover’s color camera, dubbed the Mast Camera (Mastcam), taking close-up pictures of the wheels to compare those with earlier photographs see if there has been any additional damage and deterioration over time.
Yesterday Mastcam took a new series of images of the rover’s wheels. Below are two pictures, the left taken on August 27, 2017, the right taken on July 7, 2019. I have annotated the images to help indicate where they match.
It appears that there has been a slight amount of new damage, especially in the tread labeled #5.
Looking at the other pictures taken on July 7 and comparing with the 2017 images, I also found what appeared to be more breakage in this 2019 image when compared with a comparable image taken in 2017.
Overall, however, the new damage does not appear significant, considering two years have passed. Their effort to mitigate wheel damage, described in an April 23, 2018 rover team update, seems to be working.
My annual birthday-month fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now on-going. Not only do your donations help pay my bills, they give me the freedom to speak honestly about science and culture, instead of being forced to write it as others demand.
Please consider donating by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar below.
Regular readers can support Behind The Black with a contribution via paypal:
If Paypal doesn't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Periodically, the Curiosity science team stops from its research to reassess the condition of the rover’s wheels. To do this they use the rover’s color camera, dubbed the Mast Camera (Mastcam), taking close-up pictures of the wheels to compare those with earlier photographs see if there has been any additional damage and deterioration over time.
Yesterday Mastcam took a new series of images of the rover’s wheels. Below are two pictures, the left taken on August 27, 2017, the right taken on July 7, 2019. I have annotated the images to help indicate where they match.
It appears that there has been a slight amount of new damage, especially in the tread labeled #5.
Looking at the other pictures taken on July 7 and comparing with the 2017 images, I also found what appeared to be more breakage in this 2019 image when compared with a comparable image taken in 2017.
Overall, however, the new damage does not appear significant, considering two years have passed. Their effort to mitigate wheel damage, described in an April 23, 2018 rover team update, seems to be working.
