PIA16468: Curiosity's 'Rocknest' Workplace


Curiosity’s ‘Rocknest’ Workplace

Caption:

Click here for larger version of PIA16468
Annotated Image
Click on the image for larger version

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover documented itself in the context of its work site, an area called "Rocknest Wind Drift," on the 84th Martian day, or sol, of its mission (Oct. 31, 2012). The rover worked at this location from Sol 56 (Oct. 2, 2012) to Sol 100 (Nov. 16, 2012).

The drift consists of sand trapped on the downwind side of a group of dark cobbles the team named Rocknest. This mosaic of 55 images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) shows the first four of five places from which the rover's scoop obtained sand to clean the sample handling and processing system. The scooped material was ultimately delivered to the Chemistry and Mineralogy Experiment (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory instruments housed inside the rover's body. The annotated version of this figure shows the location of a scoop taken at a later date -- the fifth and final scoop, and the only one that provided grains delivered to SAM.

Before scooping, the rover team put an approximately 20-inch-wide (about 50- centimeter-wide) wheel print on the Rocknest wind drift. This allowed MAHLI and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) to determine whether the drift really consisted of sand with small enough sizes to clean the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) instrument and be delivered to CheMin and SAM. The drift material at the center of the wheel print, named "Portage" by the rover team, was examined by the APXS.

The rover's robotic arm is not visible in the mosaic because the MAHLI that took this mosaic is on the turret at the end of the arm. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic's 55 images. An earlier version of the Sol 84 self-portrait was released Nov. 1, 2012 (see PIA16239 ).

Background Info:

JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/mars , and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
Instrument Host Curiosity Rover
Host Type Rover
Instrument Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Rotation
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2012-12-03
Date in Caption 2012-10-02 2012-10-31, 2012-11-01, 2012-11-16
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16468
Identifier PIA16468