W weekend łazik pokonał 60 metrów (najdłuższa trasa po wrześniowej awarii pamięci B) i dojechał do stanowiska Lake Orcadie,
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover drove about 197 feet (60 meters) over the weekend to a site called Lake Orcadie, pushing its total odometry to over 12 miles (20 kilometers). This was Curiosity's longest drive since experiencing a memory anomaly on Sept. 15. The rover switched to a spare computer, called the Side-A computer, on Oct. 3.http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Curiosity_on_the_move_again_999.htmlgdzie kiedyś przeprowadzono nieudaną próbę wiercenia w skałach bogatych w hematyt. Planowane jest kolejne wiercenie w tym miejscu. Jak wszystko dobrze pójdzie prace związane z wierceniem rozpoczęte będą jeszcze przed weekendem
Our attempts to drill grey rock on the "Vera Rubin Ridge" (VRR) continue. We are returning to an area known as "Lake Orcadie," the site of two previous drill attempts (Lake Orcadie and Lake Orcadie 2), which did not penetrate far enough into the bedrock to generate sufficient sample. However, the MSL team feels that the chances of drilling here have improved. Over the past 240 sols, the engineers have further refined the drill technique (here), leading to two successful drilling campaigns (Duluth and Stoer). Additionally, images collected during our previous visit here have helped us to identify three potential drill targets. Criteria such as scratches left in the bedrock by the Dust Removal Tool (DRT) will be used to see if these targets are softer, and therefore more drillable, than our previous choices.
Today's plan focuses on getting the rover to the right location. This involves a short 20 meter drive, to position us so that we are in arm's reach of our target. Science Operations revolve around imaging the drill area, filling in any gaps in our characterization of these potential targets, in order to increase the chance of picking the best one. We also want to make sure that any drill fines generated during our previous attempts here have blown away, so that instruments such as MAHLI can operate safely.https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/Pomimo przejścia na pamięć operacyjną A łazik nadal nie jest w pełni funkcjonalny
The rover continues to send limited engineering data stored in short-term memory when it connects to a relay orbiter. It is otherwise healthy and receiving commands. But whatever is preventing Curiosity from storing science data in long-term memory is also preventing the storage of the rover's event records, a journal of all its actions that engineers need in order to make a diagnosis. The computer swap will allow data and event records to be stored on the Side-A computer."At this point, we're confident we'll be getting back to full operations, but it's too early to say how soon," said Steven Lee of JPL, Curiosity's deputy project manager. "We are operating on Side A starting today, but it could take us time to fully understand the root cause of the issue and devise workarounds for the memory on Side B.
"We spent the last week checking out Side A and preparing it for the swap," Lee said. "It's certainly possible to run the mission on the Side-A computer if we really need to. But our plan is to switch back to Side B as soon as we can fix the problem to utilize its larger memory size."http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Curiosity_on_the_move_again_999.htmlMapka z lokalizacją łazika:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=43664Tutaj ciekawy artykuł o badaniach na Hematite Ridge:
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2018/pdf/1769.pdfI jeszcze kilka fotek z wczoraj:
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?s=#/?slide=2222