Exploring Mt Sharp north of the dunes - Part 1: Beyond Pahrump Hills, Site 45-50, Sol 923-1147, March 12-October 28, 2015 Options

[climber]

This make me wondering how do we know we had a cleaning event on a RTG vehicule?

[Explorer1]

Less visible dust on the rover outside, presumably?

[PaulH51]

Mission Update from Lauren Edgar - Sol 1134: Mini-start hole at “Pilgrim” LINK

Curiosity is currently investigating an alteration zone around a fracture, and the plan today is focused on what we call a “mini-start hole.” Before we do a full drill hole, we do a small test hole to make sure its safe. The target “Pilgrim” was selected for drilling, located in the middle of this Mastcam image. Today’s plan also includes MAHLI imaging of “Pilgrim,” both before and after drilling. Then we’ll place APXS over the target for analysis overnight. The plan also includes DAN, RAD and REMS measurements. Data volume and power were issues today, but the team put together a very full plan despite these limitations. I’ll be on duty as GSTL tomorrow, and it looks like we should have a science block that will allow us to characterize this target with both Mastcam and ChemCam as well.

[PaulH51]

First the good news :
Mini-start hole at “Pilgrim” looking good.... Image acquired just three hours ago on Mars !

LINK to full size

I hope I am wrong, but this image gives me some concerns about the integrity of the 150 micron screen... There is a pronounced concave appearance to the screen. Have we got an issue with the spot welds along the edge?

LINK to full size

[Gerald]

At first glance I don't see an issue.
The impression could be a result of reflecting light or some Moiré pattern.

[Phil Stooke]

It's the left edge. There are ChemCam RMI images of it as well. Looks like a tear.

Phil

[Herobrine]

Preview:

Full-size (4.4 MiB)

Dat shutter smear tho

[algorithm]

I have a sieve at home with an almost exact same issue, the sieve mesh has come away from the surrounding frame.

However, it still sieves flour just fine, and unless I decide to empty a whole pack of flour into it at once, I anticipate that it will continue to sieve flour for some time to come.

Having said that, my cakes don't suffer all that much from some lumpy flour getting int the mix, I suppose the problem for Curiosity instruments is somewhat more dire should larger grains ingress through the gap between sieve and frame.

Would that be a likely scenario? Who knows!?

[Herobrine]

Apparently, it's been that way since Sol 81 or earlier.
Here's a MASTCAM image that shows it on Sol 81.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...1000E1_DXXX.jpg
Here's a small crop of that Sol 81 MASTCAM image.

And here's an old mention of it from October of 2012.
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-...edge-welds.html

[atomoid]

little sol1132 pile before and after stamping (parellel stereo)

[serpens]

...... Looks like a tear.

Are you sure that is not accumulated dust?

[PaulH51]

Sol 1133: R-MastCam 33 frames, 11x3 mosaic. Runs ~North-South at the side of the rover and appears to track the fracture, maybe Gallatin Pass?

Flickr Original Size 18723 x 3552 pixels LINK
Imgur LINK

[Phil Stooke]

Here is a plan of activities near Greenhorn over the last few sols, with north roughly at the top.

Phil

[PaulH51]

Mission Update - By Lauren Edgar - Sol 1135: Sniffing the Martian Air LINK

The Sol 1134 mini-start hole on “Pilgrim” went well, as seen in the above MAHLI image. Side note: if that doesn’t look like a hole to you, try rotating the image (the hole is illuminated from the lower left, but the human eye generally prefers to see sunlight coming from the upper half of the image).

Due to power restrictions, we’re waiting until the weekend plan to go for the full drill hole, but that means that today there’s time for a SAM atmospheric observation and a targeted science block. The goal of the SAM activity is to look for methane, one Mars year after the previous high detections. So we’ll let SAM take a big whiff to see if we can detect anything. I was on duty as GSTL today, and we filled the science block with several ChemCam and Mastcam observations. We’re trying to look for variations in silica associated with the fracture zone that we’re drilling. We also planned several Mastcam images to look for changes in fine-grained deposits to evaluate local winds. Despite our power restrictions, planning has been going very smoothly today, and we’re looking forward to more time for science this weekend!

[elakdawalla]

Yeah, it's not a tear on the sieve. The photos they did were intentionally taken in geometry to get a specular reflection off the sieve, but I forget who told me that or why they were doing it exactly :| But I think it's just part of them monitoring long-term wear.