1409 - CacheCam image (Feb 05, 2025) Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
9-tile R-NavCam composite of the abrasion patch and the drilled hole
Ah hahahahahahahahaah
- We have 3rd-gen satellites that can correctly identify minerals from orbit, hundreds of kilometres away
- We launch a huge, complex lander with an outstanding geology toolset, far better than the Apollo generation could have dreamed of
- We send this technological marvel to a dry, eroded, pockmarked river delta billions of years old
- The sampling system flawlessly acquires samples of “weak”, sometimes heavily-altered rocks that started off as loose sand, some even containing clay
- We can plan the vehicle’s traverse so accurately that rover drivers can take weekends off without killing productivity
… and even now, years after landing, this planet still throws us!
I’m not even mad. I’m fascinated. The most difficult samples to acquire, our biggest “failures”, have been found at the literal lowest and highest elevations the rover has reached. Seriously, this apparent failure on 1409 has happened at a site almost 800 metres above the crater floor Percy first sampled in 2021. And both of these “problem” sampling sites clearly read as volcanic rocks… stuff that you’d think would be much easier to collect than old river sediment.
Oh yes, this is Mars.
Mars will always throw these curve balls :)
BTW - Did you notice that Curiosity rover is currently 778.6 meters above its landing site in Gale crater. Meanwhile outside Jezero, Perseverance is at 757.9 meters above its landing site :)
😃 Yes, these comparisons are pretty illuminating. I feel like the rover wheels really tell the tale here. If you squint hard enough, Curiosity is almost like Spirit - it faces rougher terrain than its “twin”, and has faced more adversity. Mt. Sharp/Aeolis is pretty unique geologically, and the place is just so mountainous, that the ripped-up wheels seem justified, somehow. Percy is kind of like “Oppy”, the golden child that was sent to a more benign environment, and literally bounced onto on the very thing we had dreamed of finding. Sample acquisition problems aside, Jezero Crater has been pretty good to us, as you can see from those very healthy wheels that Percy’s still sporting. I’d say Curiosity has fully earned those extra 30 metres 😁