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#marsrover

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Meanwhile of Mars:

An animation of three MastCam images from Curiosity rover from June 8, 2025 (Sol 4564) shows a portion test where small amounts of powdered rock from sample hole 43, is carefully dropped onto the closed port of the SAM instrument suite. If the team are happy with this test, they will command the rover to open the cover and drop a portion inside SAM for detailed analysis. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS #Curiosity #MSL #MarsRover #NASA #Science #Space #Solarocks #Mars #Sample

Meanwhile on the planet Mars:

Curiosity Rover drills its 43rd sample hole on June 8, 2025 (mission sol 4564) Attached is an animated GIF of HazCam subframe images captured during the drilling process. I've added the timestamps (local mars solar time) on each frame. Watch the shadow of the robotic arm move and the drill bit sink into the rock. Look closely and you can even see the rover tilt as the load on the drill changes NASA/JPL-Caltech

Perseverance rover using one of its abrasion bits in its rotary percussive drill, to remove the surface of a patch of rock during sol 1525 (June 4, 2025) for further investigation. The diameter of the bit is ~5 cm (2 inches).

Attached is a quick and dirty animated GIF using just 3 raw HazCam tiles. Credits: NASA.JPL-Caltech.

Continued thread

At the same time as the network mission concepts, just before Viking, the first rovers were being considered. They were called Viking Rovers. They would drive to various sites for analysis and in one variant collect samples for return to the lander for more thorough analysis. Here are two of the suggested rover sites and traverses. The top example is near a volcano in Elysium, the bottom one on lava plains in Syrtis Major Planum. These were the first rover plans for Mars.

Curiosity Rover's current workspace, imaged on mission sol 4539 (May 14, 2025) after a drive to the west of 22.4 meters (~74 ft). The workspace mosaic was assembled from 15 overlapping Bayer reconstructed Left MastCam sub-frame images. Also attached is the detailed drive data and a screen capture of the post-drive traverse map (with scale). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk.