The track width used above sounded too large so I checked in a recent article in JGR - Planets by Joy Crisp et al. and they give 1.22 m for the wheelbase in that direction; it is 1.41 m between the front and back wheels on one side. The 2.25 m is the maximum width of the deck.

Regarding projected lifetimes, there was this comment in the CNN version of a new AP report about the rovers:

"NASA has extended the mission through September. If the rovers continue to function, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will apply for money to extend the project again, Adler said."

Nick Hoffman did say on another board (HBZ) that he heard informally at LPSC perhaps 400+ Sols! Of course, an actuator or circuit board could go out at any time, but based on environmental constraints maybe these things really are that robust.

Doug -

A general rule of thumb for fresh simple bowl-shaped craters like this is that the depth is about 1/5 of the diameter. With the aeolian infilling I have been guessing Bonneville to be ~10-15m deep compared to ~40 m when it formed.

Fwiw, I did an M.S. in geology some years ago, with an emphasis in impact cratering.

Excellent! These look like they were taken at midday. Maybe they drove a bit more and will put those images up soon.

When the dark streak was first seen on the post-landing MOC image they said that the heat shield probably hit the rim, bounced, and slid down the outside slope towards the NW. Does this look more like it hit the outside slope first and then careened up to the top?

jmknapp - Thanks for the explanation.


Sunspot - where did you get the information about the 35 m drive? I'm still seeing the March 7 Sol 62 Rolling Along update on the JPL site.

How do you determine distances like this? Can you do the same for the right side of the panorama? From the right hand edge, the second large boulder near the crest of the slope (appears to be some drifts of sand/dust around the base) is the one shown as The Hole Point in the last traverse posted on Friday


And, Doug, thanks for making these anaglyphs. Sometimes my depth perception isn't too good and being able to really see the topography is a great help. I understand that the anaglyphing process exaggerates the vertical dimension - is it ~2X in images like these?