jbridges
Subscribe to jbridges's posts1st May 2014 Sol 618
Here is a MastCam image of drilling in progress. This is the first ‘minidrill’ hole at Windjana. You can see that Red Mars is only a very thin layer on the planet. I am Geo Science Theme Lead for a couple of days. However, the science activities are taking second priority for a few days as […]
25th April 2014 Sol 611
Here is the chosen drill site – Windjana (named after a famous set of rocks in W. Australia which show ancient paintings). It will be our first drilling since the one on Cumberland Mudstone around Sol 292, though analyses went on for much longer as we did SAM analyses for instance, to see how the […]
24th April 2014 Sol 610
We have been doing contact science and taking images in order to zero in on our exact drill point at Mt. Remarkable. Meanwhile, NavCam took this image (one of my favourites) looking back in the direction from which we have come. You can see the crater rim and the tracks leading from that direction to […]
16th April 2014 Sol602
The science team is meeting at the California Institute of Technology this week. One of our tasks is to select a drill site at Kimberley. Meanwhile we are gathering data on our location. The NavCam image shows APXS deployed. It is also a good view of the front of the rover. You can see the […]
10th April 2014 Sol 596
Here is a NavCam image of the Kimberley, with Mount Remarkable the small hill (less than 5 m high) which we are pointing towards. The science team and rover planners are considering where to drill on these sedimentary rocks. You can see boulders which have tumbled down Mt. Remarkable. The inset shows part of a […]
4th April 2014 Sol 590
We have reached Kimberley and its sedimentary rocks. Now we will take more images and decide exactly where to do ChemCam, APXS X-ray spectrometry, drill and the CheMin X-ray diffraction analyses. In this fantastic Navcam panorama you can also see Mt Sharp and the dark dunes at its base on the left (south) of this image and […]
1st April 2014 Sol 587
We have continued with contact science at the Square Top outcrop, with its characteristic striated upper surface, before we drive up to the Kimberley location. You can see the mixture of coarse and fine-grained layers. More analyses may show if the fine-grained layers are like the mudstone we drilled at Yellowknife Bay. We have had a few issues with placing […]
24th March 2014 Sol 580
We have reached the outcrops of which Kimberley is part of. After we have done some contact science at our current location ‘Square_Top’ we will move up towards Kimberley itself to prepare for drilling. I am Geo Theme group lead to day and as usual we put together a science plan, including ChemCam that is […]
18th March 2014 Sol 574
Quite a lot of the science team is at the 45th Lunar & Planetary Science Conference in Houston. This conference dates back to the Apollo era and many of the discoveries in planetary science have first been discussed here. MSL team member’s presentations this year are giving an update on our recent work. I am […]
10th March 2014 Sol 565
We are having a set of drive-only sols, to reach our next Waypont Kimberley in the next few days. At Kimberley we may do our third drill hole. The plan is for material from the drill hole wto be analysed by X-ray diffraction in CheMin. However, in order to check that we havent left material over from […]
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