It was a huge challenge. There’s a really good video out there on the challenges the team faced. I’ll see if I can find it, but if anyone else has the link please share it here :)

It’s been challenging for sure in this soft(ish) regolith and the slope angle.

It also looks like there was a failed drive on sol 1287. After losing Spirit rover in a sand trap the rover drivers have been very careful traversing across loose sand.

I would not be surprised if they make a move to either side of this ‘smooth passage’. The orbital imagery appears to show more favourable terrain (rougher) at the north and south edges. That diversion may only be required for the next 300 meters or so, as the distance between the contours widens a little after that, before narrowing again as they get nearer the rim crest. Whichever path they take it’s going to take a lot of drives to reach the crest.

It’s got another 3 months left before it is archived.

I joined in January 2013, but lurked there for a long while before that.

I’ll miss it, as I am sure many others will

I expect a future book or two when the MSL and 2020 surface operations eventually come to a close. Knowing some of the players I don’t feel they would be overtly controversial. but one may have to read a little between the lines :) Sadly I’m already as old as dirt, so I won’t be seeing them on my coffee table before they nail my pine lid down. As for Neretva Vallis, you are not alone, it seemed more than a little odd that only one sample was taken. I know they have limited tubes left, but it sure feels like a missed opportunity…

I’m sure there are a lot of folk that would appreciate and be very interested in any contributions you make, where you could shine a light on the many gaps there are in their understanding. It’s probably not something you can measure in counting lots of upvotes on particular, but I’m pretty sure there is an audience out there for you… Go for it whenever you see feature in any of the raw images or breaking down the results of a paper…

They couldn’t spring for the S-VDB?

Those S-VDB’s are a tad pricey 😂 😂 😂

I’d hate to think what a numismatist with deep pockets would pay for that VDB, if it was ever brought home, no matter what its PCGS grade … 🤯

they’re not fun.

100% agreed… Ingenuity should still be gathering data and the occasional images down in Neretva Vallis. Weather permitting it should do that for many years to come. A severe dust storm could dramatically reduce the output from its small solar array to a point where its heaters would not have sufficient power to prevent damage to its batteries and sensitive electronics.

Thats pretty rad.

It is a very special view, but if not for the regional dust storm we are experiencing, we’d have a clear view of the crater floor where we landed and some of the areas we visited since landing. We’d even be able to see the Mars helicopter with the MastCam-Z cameras, granted it would only be a a few pixels across as it’s close to 2 kilometers away (1.23 miles) still sat atop a sandy ripple in Neretva Vallis :) I hope the dust storm subsides before we drive over the crater rim, as the views will be memorable.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the meetings between the science teams on which rocks to investigate. There must be disagreements between the scientists :) I guess we would have only travelled a few hundred meters if they stopped at every rock / target that looked interesting to one of the team, instead of the 32.51 km (20.20 miles) we have traversed. As for the colour, I like to look at the colour of the tailings when they drill holes, there are many gray rocks, but quite a few reddish ones as well. This illustrates it well for me (all 42 sample holes) https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA26403.jpg

Wonder if it’s something they will consider changing in the designs of future rovers. They already changed the design for the Perseverance rover, it has more grousers and a different pattern for those grousers. those redesigned wheels have been on Mars for 1279 sols (so far) and have zero damage.

Here’s a short video clip that goes over the changes https://youtu.be/ov_TXfWBf-4?t=68

why isn’t the wheel solid?

• Weight is an issue
• The wheels were the rover shock absorbers during landing (by the sky-crane back in 2012)
• Yes, no passenger comfort, but there is an amount of sensitive electronics and instruments to protect.

Several years ago they did an engineering study that basically stated that when a specific number of cleats broke it had used up a percentage of its life. We’re past that stage now. They have since developed a scenario that will allow them to rip one half of the damaged wheel off, and still drive on the remaining half… All of the wheels are motorized, losing one wheel won’t stop the rover from traversing to it’s science waypoints

It was, the climb on 1274 currently holds second place on the leader board, the highest elevation climb in a single drive is currently 26.4 meters (sol 1268), but that was over a marginally longer traverse, so probably a very similar average angle. I agree that the team have appeared to pause the drives whenever they spot an enticing target of opportunity :)

Pity we don’t get frequent and detailed mission updates (Like we get on MSL). The PDS mission manager reports are amazing, but they are only made public at least 6 months after the ‘event’

I’d like to hope so. One could assume that it would be a prerequisite to any crewed missions, so fingers crossed for a high-speed / volume DSN in my lifetime ☺️

That’s the one 🤣🤣🤣

Looking at the camera elevation and the 110mm zoom, I’d have to assume it was a very small skull rock on Mars ;)

The Martian hand is considered tame compared with the NSFW traverse inside Neretva Vallis by Perseverance rover 😂

The public can access the mission map on this URL. It is updated by the mission team after each drive https://mars.nasa.gov/maps/location/?mission=Curiosity

BattleBots on Mars :)

I would hope they do a mix of “old world” and ‘new’ world names 😁

The dump is a text file i’ve updated as the mission progressed. Saves me time when I get asked the question re place names.