Three abrasions and 4 pattern cores later, the rover has lastly departed the Séítah space and is embarking on the return leg of the crater ground marketing campaign. One main distinction between the “out” journey and this return journey is the tempo of Perseverance’s driving. As we drove in the direction of Séítah earlier within the mission, our common day by day drive distance was shorter, partly as a result of we have been doing scientific reconnaissance at vital stops alongside the best way, and partly as a result of we have been nonetheless studying tips on how to maximize drive effectivity with our rover. Now, on the return journey again to Octavia E. Butler Landing, we’re dashing again!
Since leaving Séítah just a few days in the past, Perseverance has already logged two large, record-setting 240+ meter drives on sols 340 and 341. These drives set the record for the longest single-sol whole distance recorded by any martian rover (243.three m) and the single-sol Autonav file by any martian rover (226.5 m). If this can be a signal of future drives to return, we’ll be zooming by way of the remainder of the crater ground marketing campaign to the delta very quickly.
Mars Perseverance Sol 345 – Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera: NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this picture of the world in entrance of it utilizing its onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A. This picture reveals the rover arm reaching out over the Rimplas outcrop, taken from our present location. The rubbly layers in the direction of the underside of this outcrop would be the focus of abrasion and proximity science with PIXL, SHERLOC, and WATSON over the following few sols. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
So the place are we proper now? We are at the moment in entrance of an outcrop referred to as “Rimplas,” for a fast abrasion and proximity science pit cease on our method again (a future cease can be to accumulate our final samples from the crater ground – keep tuned for a future weblog submit!). This location is near the place Perseverance was on sol 177 virtually 170 sols in the past, close to the Artuby outcrop the place we noticed intriguing layered rocks. We now perceive these layered rocks to be a part of the Artuby “member” (a gaggle of rocks with frequent traits) that underlie the Rochette caprock member which was sampled in our first rock cores. These enigmatic layers haven’t but been abraded and studied intimately with the PIXL, SHERLOC, and WATSON devices, therefore our present cease on the layered rocks at Rimplas. Here’s to hoping that we’ll have our 6th abrasion patch later this week!
Written by Vivian Sun, Science Operations Systems Engineer, Staff Scientist at NASA/JPL
