Sol 332: Mount Sharp post haste

The rover's making extremely good progress towards the base of Mount Sharp. The strategy right now is to use a dune free area west of the rover's position which lies around 8 km away. Sprinting at least 20 m/day will get us to the 'ingress point' in around 400 days time. Plenty of time to allow us to soak in the ever changing scene as we make our way west.

Map showing Curiosity's progress up to sol 329 (NASA/JPL/UA)

To get out of the Glenelg quickly, the rover team employed the same route used to get into the area in November last year. And speaking of changing scenes, the rover has engaged in recent imaging with its MARDI image which hasn't seen much use since sol 176. If you remember, MARDI stands for 'Mars Descent Imager' which is located on the rover's front left underside. It captured spectacular images of Curiosity's descent towards the floor of Gale crater during landing last year in August.

Engineering diagram
showing where MARDI
is located (NASA/JPL)

Because it lacked a proper lens cover or similar protection like the other cameras it, MARDI's lens ended up covered in a fine layer of Martian dust kicked up by the rover's rocket-powered landing system and has since been producing hazy images. But now the decision has been to use the camera to document the changes in terrain texture. Images captured in twilight conditions have been shown to result in good contrast images without much light scattering from the dust coating the lens.

Two MARDI shots comparing the change in terrain
texture. From layered terrain to a rocky plain
(NASA/JPL/MSSS/Abraham Samma)

MAHLI is also being utilised for the same purpose. That seems to have been the only major activities this past week, interspersed with imaging with the colour Mastcams and long drives bordering 40m or so.

Sol 329 navigation mosaic showing Glenelg
and two sets of tracks. The right are new and
the left are old ones made last year leading
to Rocknest where Curiosity scooped
(NASA/JPL/Abraham Samma)

Finally, I'd like to share another brilliant video from JPL that summarises pretty much everything plus explains a little more about how Curiosity is making its towards the western ingress point. Enjoy and stay curious!