Traverse to the Delta, sols 379-414, 15 Mar 2022- 21 Apr 2022 Options

[tau]

Sol 403 Mastcam-Z images (enhanced colors, anaglyph) with parachute and backshell

[PaulH51]

Edit: Another drive on Sol 404, but the images were only acquired on the morning of sol 405

Roughly processed post-drive (4-tile) NavCam's, assembled in MS-ICE from the available images.

[Keltos]

Sol 405 she turned around!! Looks like she might approach the base of the delta

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

They don't make it easy for us! This is the sol 405 morning panorama in circular form - at the sol 404 location.

Phil

[vikingmars]

Sol 405 she turned around!! Looks like she might approach the base of the delta

Really great, but...
Sorry to say that "ordinary" people here tell us that those Mars rocks always look the same and they feel quite bored.
This is a real concern not to be avoided.
=>> We need to give them inspiring pictures : today, they feel more concerned by the emergencies of war and the constraints of daily life
And we have not to forget that they are also taxpayers (even in France for experiments paid on the Perseverance rover).
Before going to the base of the delta, we are many people involved in fostering space exploration (not only at TPS but also in space-related organizations in France) thinking that it should be nice to take the opportunity of being close to the parachute and its backshell (a mere 2-day driving away) to go there first and take some quick & spectacular pictures of them

[tau]

I would avoid driving near the parachute.
We learned not long ago that even in the thin Martian atmosphere, a sudden dust storm can throw sand onto the rover deck.
Movement of the parachute during a storm or by a dust devil is quite possible. I would not want the rover to get tangled in a parachute.
Better, the rover avoids unnecessary risks and provides spectacular images of Martian landscapes and rocks.

[tau]

A Phobos transit in the Gemini constellation on sol 397 caused a partial sun occultation (timeline and animated gif).
Some sunspots are visible.


Edit: Typo in the time format corrected

[Saturns Moon Tit...]

Sol 405 she turned around!! Looks like she might approach the base of the delta

If they do indeed decide to drive towards the base of the delta, then checking out the geological contact between the lake sediments and the Maaz formation (lava flow) might be the reason why. Perhaps they think they've spotted an outcrop that shows this, or they think they'll be able to see the contact using RIMFAX (the ground-penetrating radar). Investigating this contact would be important because hopefully they'd be determine whether the lava flow postdates the lake or pre-dates the lake, which means when we do radiometric dating on those igneous rock cores upon return to Earth we'll know whether we're getting a minimum or maximum age for the delta.

Alternatively, perhaps they just decided to turn on the spot for some reason. Guess we'll see soon.

[vikingmars]

I would avoid driving near the parachute.
We learned not long ago that even in the thin Martian atmosphere, a sudden dust storm can throw sand onto the rover deck.
Movement of the parachute during a storm or by a dust devil is quite possible. I would not want the rover to get tangled in a parachute.
Better, the rover avoids unnecessary risks and provides spectacular images of Martian landscapes and rocks.

I was not speaking of rolling on Perseverance's parachute, but get close enough to make a nice picture, like the Chinese did.
And the local scenery with its background mountains, would make such pictures truly spectacular
Spectacular enough to make world press publications (nobody noticed the Chinese picture release, save from space enthusiasts).

[djellison]

Spectacular enough to make world press publications (nobody noticed the Chinese picture release, save from space enthusiasts).

Nobody would notice Perseverance doing it either, apart from space enthusiasts. Tianwen-1 was blessed with a very traversable terrain and a strategic route that went straight past their backshell anyway. It essentially cost them nothing to do it.

M2020’s backshell is not so fortunate. It landed in some rough terrain - round trip to get from here to the far side of it, safely, and back again, is probably two weeks of effort. That doesn’t seem a sensible thing to do with ~$30M worth of prime mission. It would likely gain as much “Why are we littering Mars” coverage as “Wow -let’s pay for more space” coverage. I have already seen the ‘littering’ comment repeatedly after the few Mastcam shots.

This mission, like Curiosity, has shown it is totally open to doing cool stuff purely for EPO (selfies, etc) but an expedition to go get a back shell postcard I think would constitute a pretty irresponsible way to spend prime mission time.

[Phil Stooke]

Sol 405 - the afternoon panorama in circular form. Good driving terrain!

Phil

[vikingmars]

M2020’s backshell is not so fortunate. It landed in some rough terrain - round trip to get from here to the far side of it, safely, and back again, is probably two weeks of effort. That doesn’t seem a sensible thing to do with ~$30M worth of prime mission

Good point Doug. Well noted.
So, we hope that we could get good pictures of the backshell and its parachute from the helicopter Ingenuity which is not far away from them
Those could be even more spectacular ! "Dare Mighty Things"

[Ant103]

Sol 405 Navcam panoramic is just great. The base of the delta is very close now !

[tau]

97 new Mastcam-Z raw images of the delta from sol 306 just arrived.
Here are three of them, specially selected for the "inner sedimentologist" of Saturns Moon Titan, in a processed version.
A note for new visitors: the blue color of some of the stones in the images is due to color enhancement. In reality they are more gray or brownish gray.

[Keltos]

97 new Mastcam-Z raw images of the delta from sol 306 just arrived.
Here are three of them, specially selected for the "inner sedimentologist" of Saturns Moon Titan, in a processed version.
A note for new visitors: the blue color of some of the stones in the images is due to color enhancement. In reality they are more gray or brownish gray.

last image looks igneous