But the LED-lit shot is seriously full of detail:

Lovely detail, I see they also used the ACI. I’m assuming that they’ll give it a touch of LIBS while they’re here :)

fractured material we’re targeting is small enough to be hidden by the sandy ripples…

Fully agreed, heaven knows whats under those ripples to the west. Saying that we could drive a bit further west without having issues with those ripples. I wonder if they’ll venture that way 😀

The SHERLOC WATSON camera capturing the image, snapped by the HazCam

Close-up

And we’re still waiting for the drive data. No idea why this is not issued 🤔

I’m going to have to find and re-watch that movie :) And I’m sure you’re right that the drivers dream about such a move.

Not sure if you’ve ever seen any of Seán Doran’s animations from Curiosity Rover. He mapped the terrain the rover was in using 3D meshes assembled from the NavCams. If there was a lot of MastCam images, he would overlay those on the 3D model. He would then place a 3D model of the rover onto the model and replicate the path of the rover from the traverse map co-ordinates. I can’t find one particular video as he removed a lot of his work from YouTube, and made his stuff on Flickr ‘Private’ as it was getting ripped off and re-posted by a number of other folk as their own animations. If you followed Curiosity, you’ll recall the rover drove up on top of Mont Murcou, it took a selfie at the base and a 360 MastCam Pan from the top before driving away. Sean had it all mapped and animated. IIRC Mont Mercou was about 7 meters tall with a cliff face on one side. My memory is failing a little, and I cant recall if it was Sean or someone else, who animated the rover doing an impersonation of Steve McQueen’s Bullit jumping off that cliff, but it was a classic

Still waiting for the official drive data, but it’s in the order of 5 meters

Update - The JSON’s were just released, see new post

it would appear they went SW or WSW

Excellent call regarding drive direction! According to the post-drive image metadata that reports the x,y z of the rover from the last zero reset of the RMC site number. That data tells us the distances between the rover’s end-of-drive location and its beginning-of-drive location was 147.24 meters west, and 51.4 meters south. So that looks very close to WSW.

We’ll get a precise Lat / Long etc when the traverse map or Waypoints JSON is released. Sadly that won’t be released until the JPL staff report for work in the next few hours and have checked / approved the data before releasing it :)

I was hoping they’d give those spherules a dose if LIBS, but I’ve not really looked at all the pre-drive images yet. I also hope that the next time they equip a rover to explore other worlds they have a modified collection strategy that besides coring, they include the ability to collect samples from the surface (small pebbles etc) so we’re sure to get things like those spherules :)

Edited to correct a typo and add the z -28.14 meters (change in elevation)

👍

I’d forgot about the aim to leave the tubes unsealed. Clearly a lot of questions about the geology outside the crater that require further investigation, and with few tubes, it makes sense to be selective. With sample return not close to having a date, I guess they can afford to take their time.

Unfortunate that we can’t retain this small fragment when we gather the next core

I can see why they’d want to isolate cores for return to earth, but I’m sure they’d prefer to have a larger sample. Be interesting to see if they attempt to get a bigger core at this location using the same tube as it basically be the same material, maybe we’ll see an attempt to shake that fragment out of the tube before trying again, or seal the sample and move on.

Have they sealed the last sample tube yet? I can’t remember seeing images of it being sealed

I guess one option would be to leave this tube unsealed in the cache and decide later to stack another core on top?

Decisions decisions :) Too many choices :)

As you say ‘It is hard to tell’, but going by the reflected light inside the tube in one of the CacheCam frame we have at this time, I’m assuming that that core fell out before it reached the imaging station inside the rover. More images needed :)

Update Edit after more images arrived:

Looks like I was wrong, there appears to be a small fragment in the bottom of the tube

Did this short drive really take 1 hour?

The data shows that duration.

We can usually trust this data, although the JSON data is occasionally revised and the JSON updated, after the team have checked the data, but that’s rare from what I’ve observed.

The data is provided by JPL, in their post drive Traverse JSON URL.

That JSON reports the mission clock time in seconds (since landing).

It reports the start-of-drive (SCLK_Start) and end-of-drive (SCLK_End).

The difference between the two timestamps for this drive is 3504 seconds, or 58.4 minutes

I’m assuming the rover paused at some point during its drive although there are no mid drive images (so far), the clock keeps running during pauses for imaging or hazard avoidance.

I don’t see any hazards, except for the small boulder to the side of the rover at the start of the drive. I’ve checked the RMC numbers on all the images we have so far from sol 1551, and I don’t see any mid-drive images.

There may be some further images that are still on the rover (yet to be downlinked), so let’s assume that it paused to drive around that rock (see attached pre-drive HazCam tile)

I hope I’m better at geology than poetry.

Your geology and poetry are way better than mine :)

I’d hazard a guess that is why they returned to this area. Yes the rock is readily fractured, but possibly better cemented than those further west and south. We’ll see if they try a new abrasion or just go for a core :)

Just in case you’d missed it: You can turn parts of the map on and off on the Berlin map, eg those camera icons and the rover’s current location + See this screen shot

It’s a good map, very useful :)

Not looking good. Sol 1548 NavCam tile (processed (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Third time’s a charm? Or time to move on? I’d say go for it again

Nice animation :) Definitely an improvement on the earlier attempt, we see still see some some fracturing, but a lot less movement (side-to-side) movement of the drill (maybe more down-force on the support pillars?). We’ll have to wait for the post abrading images after they move the turret away from the site so see what they have achieved. Whatever the results of this abrasion the fact that it readily breaks up, attempts to retain a core will likely be difficult.