Sol 3458: Revenge of the Wheels

While angular, pointy rocks have damaged the rover's wheels since early in the MSL mission, sometimes the wheels damage rocks as the rover drives over them. As seen especially at the upper left side of this image, the bedrock was scraped and fractured by the rover during the Sol 3456 drive. Unfortunately, that drive did not complete as planned, but the tactical team took advantage of the situation by targeting observations of the freshly-exposed rock surfaces. First, the APXS will be placed on a scrape mark named "Cow Head" to measure its elemental chemistry, then MAHLI will take a full suite of images of the same target. MAHLI will also take some images of a rock fragment "Orton Scar" that was broken off a bedrock slab. Hopefully textural details will be more visible on these fresh faces than on the nearby undisturbed, dustier rocks.

We will also take advantage of our new location to take Mastcam images of Maringma Butte, as the rover is closer to that outcrop than expected. Mastcam will also acquire multispectral sets of images of the Cow Head and Orton Scar contact science targets. Navcam will search for dust devils and characterize the dustiness of the atmosphere toward the north before the rover drives again. After the drive and the typical post-drive imaging, MARDI will again acquire a twilight image of the ground behind the left front wheel. So overall it was a busy but ultimately satisfying day for me as SOWG Chair.

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center