NASA's Curiosity Rover has been on the move heading towards some interesting rocks for further study. However, its chosen path proved to be too difficult for it to traverse due to the slippery slopes of the Martian mountain. However, scientists in charge of the mission were able to find a new path to the rocks that proved much safer and easier for the rover.
Curiosity climbed a hill to approach an alternative site for investigating a geological boundary, after the original site proved too difficult to reach. The drive of about 22 meters up slopes as steep as 21 degrees brought Curiosity close to a target area where two distinct types of bedrock meet.
The team of scientists in charge of the rover want to examine an outcrop of rocks that contains the contact between the pale rock unit the mission found on the lower areas of Mount Sharp and a darker, bedded rock that the mission has yet to examine.
The rover was interrupted by multiple slips of its wheels as it traversed the slippery slopes of the Red Planet, so the team rerouted the rover on a more westward path. The mission's strategic planning keeps multiple route options open to deal with these types of situations.
"Mars can be very deceptive," said Chris Roumeliotis, Curiosity's lead rover driver at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
"We knew that polygonal sand ripples have caused Curiosity a lot of drive slip in the past, but there appeared to be terrain with rockier, more consolidated characteristics directly adjacent to these ripples. So we drove around the sand ripples onto what we expected to be firmer terrain that would give Curiosity better traction," Roumeliotis says. "Unfortunately, this terrain turned out to be unconsolidated material too, which definitely surprised us and Curiosity."
During the four drives between May 7 and May 13, Curiosity experienced wheel slippage in excess of the limit set for the drive, stopping mid-drive for safety. The rover's onboard software determines the amount of slippage that occurs by measuring and comparing the total drive distance and wheel-rotation from analysis of images taken during the drive.
NASA's Curiosity rover was originally launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011 and it landed on the Aeolis Palus in the Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012. Since that time, it has roamed the surface studying the climate and geology of the planet. Its goals included assessing environmental conditions and the role of water and potential habitability of the planet.
