First drill stop: John Klein in Yellowknife Bay, Site 6, Sol 166-271, January 23-May 12, 2013 Options

[Ant103]

168 & 169 updated with the latest frames :

[Gerald]

Region of a MAHLI sol 169 image with brightness stretched almost to black/white:

[jmknapp]

MAHLI mosaic, sol 168--click for zoom.it version:

[Phil Stooke]

Looking at the brushed area in 169 and 170 images, it looks as if the target was brushed twice on sol 169, with the DRT offset a bit between them, and then a third brushing across the middle of them on the same sol. Then on 170 the left end of the brushed area was brushed again.

Phil

(Thanks jmknapp for that nice mosaic and your new route plot in the map thread)

[Airbag]

There are two sets of very similar (other than time of day) MAHLI images from sols 170 and 171, and based on what I read here I assumed they were the before and after images of where the drill's "stand off" (pre-load) posts were in contact with the surface. And sure enough, what I think must be the characteristic tell-tale indentations of the tiny spikes on the posts are visible in for instance these areas:


Close ups before and after (animations):



I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the equivalent sets in the other three image pairs

Airbag

[eoincampbell]

Anyone know which direction (wrt MAHLI images) the DRT brushes rotate? Have some concretions become dislodged since brushing?...

[elakdawalla]

As of sol 166 they've incremented the site counter to 6, and it now seems that they do that when they're getting ready to stay a while and do some serious sampling activity. (They incremented to 4 when they pulled up to the CAP 2 spot on sol 29, and to 5 when they arrived at Rocknest for the first soil sample on sol 57.) So it seems to me to be a good spot to break off the "traveling to Glenelg" thread and start a new one. Happy drilling, Curiosity!

Here's a link to the current position in the Route Map thread.

[Phil Stooke]

Here's another of the drill press points:



Phil

[Phil Stooke]

and another set:



Phil

[Phil Stooke]

and the last set:



The second point in the post two above is still eluding me...

Phil

[James Sorenson]

A sneek peak at the Beautiful 360 degree Mastcam panorama that Curiosity took on Sol-170.

[Phil Stooke]

This is a mash-up of several images - jmknapp's MAHLI mosaic, James Sorenson's recent mosaic, and some of the recent sites noted above. There's one more image with drill press marks that I have not yet found on here. (it's off to the lower left from here)

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

... and now all the locations (except the one I can't see yet) plotted on Edtruthan's mosaic.

Phil

[centsworth_II]

As of sol 166 they've incremented the site counter to 6...

Normally I don' t bother with the tech talk that goes over my head, but this one is bothering me. Could you explain the purpose of the site counter and what incrementing it means?

[Airbag]

... and now all the locations (except the one I can't see yet) plotted on Edtruthan's mosaic.
Phil

You get an "A-" Phil; it would have been an full "A" if you had found the last one too

BTW, I just came across a wonderfully detailed document about the drill and its testing for all you fellow gearheads out there.

Airbag