Curiosity: Approaching the saddle
Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on November 5, 2021 by Curiosity’s high resolution camera, and looks forward at its planned route up onto the saddle ahead, where the rover will turn right and climb up into Maria Gordon Notch. (See this October post for a map outlining the rover’s future travels.) I think that cliff face is between 40 to 60 feet high, though this is a very wild guess.
As noted by Abigail Fraeman of JPL on the Curiosity blog on November 3, 2021,
The terrain is beginning to steepen as Curiosity gets close to the end of this region, so even though we’re only a few drives away from our last drill site … we’ve already climbed 25 m higher!
The route ahead looks equally steep, though the ground actually appears less rough, with fewer large jagged boulders that Curiosity must avoid to protect its wheels.
It will likely be at least one to three weeks however before Curiosity gets to that saddle. The science team has begun a drilling campaign at the present location, and this will take time, depending on how many holes they decide to drill.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on November 5, 2021 by Curiosity’s high resolution camera, and looks forward at its planned route up onto the saddle ahead, where the rover will turn right and climb up into Maria Gordon Notch. (See this October post for a map outlining the rover’s future travels.) I think that cliff face is between 40 to 60 feet high, though this is a very wild guess.
As noted by Abigail Fraeman of JPL on the Curiosity blog on November 3, 2021,
The terrain is beginning to steepen as Curiosity gets close to the end of this region, so even though we’re only a few drives away from our last drill site … we’ve already climbed 25 m higher!
The route ahead looks equally steep, though the ground actually appears less rough, with fewer large jagged boulders that Curiosity must avoid to protect its wheels.
It will likely be at least one to three weeks however before Curiosity gets to that saddle. The science team has begun a drilling campaign at the present location, and this will take time, depending on how many holes they decide to drill.