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NASA's Mars Exploration Program (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Sol 0518: Team Assessing Rover’s Coring Bit
The panorama is made up of 110 individual Mastcam-Z images stitched together. The images were taken on Sols 518 (Aug. 5, 2022). Images and data downlinked Thursday from Perseverance show that we’ve successfully cored, sealed, and stored our 12th sample of the mission. As the team always does, images of several sample collection system components were taken after completion of the coring activity. In those images, two small pieces of debris were visible – a small object on the coring bit (stored in the bit carousel) and a small hairline object on the drill chuck. The team is now looking into the origin of the debris, and whether it originated from the rover or external debris from the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system that was jettisoned at the start of the mission. It is early in the investigation. Commands will be uplinked tomorrow for additional imaging. Perseverance’s forward Hazcam and Navcams will obtain images of the workspace (the surface directly in front of the rover) to see if there is any foreign object debris visible. And the turret at the end of the robotic arm will be slewed so pictures of the drill chuck and bit carousel can be obtained from more oblique angles. That imaging data is expected down sometime over the weekend. Additional imaging and other diagnostic activities needed to further understand the nature of the debris are also being considered, with their implementation expected to take place early next week. Written by Art Thompson, Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover. Other panoramas of Mars by Perseverance rover:
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The planet Earth has proven to be too limiting for our awesome community of panorama photographers. We're getting an increasing number of submissions that depict locations either not on Earth (like Mars, the Moon, and Outer Space in general) or do not realistically represent a geographic location on Earth (either because they have too many special effects or are computer generated) and hence don't strictly qualify for our Panoramic World project.But many of these panoramas are extremely beautiful or popular of both.So, in order to accommodate our esteemed photographers and the huge audience that they attract to 360Cities with their panoramas, we've created a new section (we call it an "area") called "Out of this World" for panoramas like these.Don't let the fact that these panoramas are being placed at the Earth's South Pole fool you - we had to put them somewhere in order not to interfere with our Panoramic World.Welcome aboard on a journey "Out of this World".
