Exploring Mt Sharp north of the dunes - Part 1: Beyond Pahrump Hills, Site 45-50, Sol 923-1147, March 12-October 28, 2015 Options

[elakdawalla]

Finally drove away from Pahrump Hills on sol 923. Wheel tracks sure are piling up at the end of the drive -- there seems to have been quite a bit of slip.

[admin note: I was going to start a new thread for this, but realized our thread naming may be a bit out of whack because we're really not journeying to Mt Sharp anymore, are we? We'll discuss it with admins and I'll move/rename posts when we figure out our naming schema.]

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[ngunn]

we're really not journeying to Mt Sharp anymore, are we?

Isn't 'Mount Sharp' essentially the name of a topographic feature rather than a geologic one?. We may have arrived at rocks that are from the same unit as the base of the mountain but we certainly haven't arrived at the mountain, so I'd say the team were stretching a point to make a point (with good reason) when they announced the 'arrival' and that the thread title's fine.

[fredk]

I agree with ngunn that it's reasonable to say we're still "journeying to Mt Sharp". But the precise boundary of the topographic feature is not well defined, so at some (somewhat arbitrary) point in the future some moderator will have to put their foot down and say "we've arrived".

[Explorer1]

Maybe after passing the dune fields would be as good a point as any in the meantime? It could be titled 'final approach', or 'ascent beginning'?

[Phil Stooke]

http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/ima...CAM00277M_.html


<sings> You're so vein, you prob'ly think this image is of you... <backtoprose>

Yes, vein alert! Very interesting area.

Phil

[elakdawalla]

Well, according to the mission, we arrived at Mount Sharp as we approached Pahrump Hills, and the rocks we're driving on now are basal to Mount Sharp. But I won't rename the old thread.

We've driven onto some rocks with some pretty interesting-looking veins:

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[Phil Stooke]

A quick circular view of the region - half a circle anyway.

Phil

[brellis]

I had a brief gasp when I read "we're not journeying to Mt. Sharp anymore, are we?" -- I wondered if plans to climb after adequate science has occurred at the base had changed. ack, I'm still the kid in the back seat who wants the panoramic view and to see Curiosity hold the altitude title.

[atomoid]

sol924...And a two-hump camel makes an ummm.. (only kidding!)

[jvandriel]

The road ahead.

The MastCam L view on Sol 923.

Jan van Driel

[jvandriel]

The partial Navcam L view on Sol 924.

Jan van Driel

[jvandriel]

Mastcam L view on Sol 924.

Jan van Driel

[PaulH51]

...sol 923 Wheel tracks sure are piling up at the end of the drive -- there seems to have been quite a bit of slip.

I believe that Joe's drive log derives drive distance on wheel rotation data. If that is still the case, then we also appear to have had significant wheel slip during the sol 924 drive. JPL issued a point to point distance of 6.13 meters, Joe's page indicates >20m, this could be corruption in the NAIF data, or slip.

The rear pointing NavCam images of the drive on 624 are only down as thumbnails so far, but the wheel track in one of those thumbs looks similar to the deep tracks on the 923 drive. Joe's speed plot for that drive has some really interesting sharp fluctuations in elevation that don't seem to reflect the path, could this be recording the wheels digging in a little until forward progress was made?

[djellison]

this could be corruption in the NAIF data, or slip.

NAIF reports raw rover motion ( thus not accounting for slip ) at first until it's bundle adjusted and then it'll be normalized back to the 6m distance as I understand it.

[xflare]

YES! Looks like we are going to take a look at all those veins

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra...26.565191980773