I wish they would release this sort of update more frequently :)

I hope the agencies that govern the space fairing nations continue to fund exploration to further our understanding of our solar system and beyond

What have they done with Ken

I heard reports of persistent banging on a locked storage room door at JPL, but strangely no one could find the key ;)

Can mean a lot of things, sometimes they could be metamorphic rocks. Basically they are interesting because this rover has not conducted any contact science on a white rock since arriving in Jezero crater. Only once they’ve completed an investigation will we know what type it is

His video titles are often clickbait, but on the whole I enjoy his content.

ICYMI - They just drove downslope to a field full of small white (light toned) rocks :)

I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting any of those analog locations, but I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting a few of the remote deserts in the middle East in my working years. Granted I was there for work, but did get to explore / enjoy the places during downtime :) I’m with you regarding the need to be sure of the environment before we put boots on the Martian surface, but that could have been done years ago, even decades ago. The 60’s was an amazing time to witness what was being achieved. Hopefully there will be a similar period in the future. Time will tell.

Are we really passing up all those tasty-textured boulders on the hill??

It’s certainly looking that way. I’ve wanted boots on the ground since the Apollo missions were completed. Certainly not going to happen in what’s left before they nail down my pine lid. That’s for the younger one’s to experience…

It looks like it has been polished by eons of wind blown dust particles

Nicely done, I preferred the older JPL mission traverse maps as used on the early years of the MSL mission, as each waypoint and some of the larger features were labeled. I can only assume that the new style interactive maps can not cope with that level of detail.

Look close - You’ll see one of the rear wheels perched on a rock.

They will likely not perform any arm work in this state.

https://youtu.be/d_XVVCVHGlQ

Apologies for the stitching errors (upper right of the slope) MS-ICE didn’t do a great job this time, and I missed it before sharing

You mean “notional path to the SSW”, Paul, no?

They chose North on 1301 :) see https://mars.nasa.gov/maps/location/?mission=M20

Not quite the place I was thinking of, but we have a good selection of targets for arm work :)

My bad, SSW… Fat fingers 😮

This is a 4-tile end-of-drive NavCam. The rear of the rover is pointing NE. Assembled in MS-ICE - Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rover is currently driving up the rim wall of Jezero crater. The rim wall was created by a huge impact in Mars early history. So we could be looking at some of the oldest rocks that were uplifted during the impact. I’m clearly not a geologist, so it will be interesting to see the results of the investigations of the rocks in this region by the science team.

Wouldn’t want to catch your spacesuit on that ;) Have to use some of your expensive duct tape :)

:)

STOP STOP I’M GETTING A NOSEBLEED

I just posted the processed 4-tile image (glancing over it’s shoulder at the tracks) Hope the nosebleed has ceased ;)

Curiosity’s single drive climbing record is currently 9.49 meters. Sadly I don’t have the data for Spirit and Opportunity, but I’m guessing the record climb is now held by Perseverance with that climb of 32.419922 meters :)