Post Conjunction: Santa Maria to Cape York, The Journey to 'Spirit Point' Options

[ElkGroveDan]

Starting a new topic to include Eduardo's Google overlay for the rest of the journey to Cape York:

http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/gmars_ma...41_1775_RED.kml

Follow the link above and it should load right in to your Google Mars features.

I took a low crow's flight along the final 6km this morning. Below in green is what I think the final route will look like. Also an interesting feature along the way that appears to be a cluster of rocks, possibly Santa Maria ejecta, or large meteorite fragments. Note how the dune has evolved around the three (or more) objects. Object is at -2.199395°, -5.396676° -- roughly 3km down range from Santa Maria.

EDIT: bad link replaced, wider context image added for three rocks.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[centsworth_II]

Well... Victoria Crater big, anyway.

So to examine Cape York as thoroughly as the perimeter of Victoria was examined could take a year.


Source images:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=128456
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=171593

[fredk]

...could take a year.

I couldn't imagine them spending anything like a year at CY when the real goal of clays would be farther to the south (not that you meant to suggest that, 'worth).

In fact, I wonder if they may decide to head straight for Tribulation, where the biggest exposure of clays seems to be, instead of CY. Or perhaps straight to Solander Point instead and then south to Tribulation. CY is quite a bit out of the way.

[ngunn]

straight for Tribulation

I agree. This must be gathering votes amongst those who will decide. In addition to the clays Tribulation has the same curious skirting shelf as Cape York so I can't see any obvious science that would be lost by missing out the latter except in the case that the rover fails just before reaching the slightly more distant target.