I don’t think that battle will ever end. Such battles end up scrapping years of work. Budgets that change every 4 years on most missions are really wasteful, budgets that change more frequently are madness IMHO. We’ll see how it plays out this time.

Agreed! from the image sets it’s not a new core. I’ve been wearing readers for >40 years with increasing levels of power :) Even with the readers, my eyes are not what they used to be. I’m hoping they’ll acquire some 4-tile CacheCam images that I can stitch together and actually use to compare the two faces :) Looks like they have more than enough space in the tube to cap / seal the core. A few sols of post coring activities, including those close up images of the tailings, and they should be ready to move on. :)

I tried to post one of those new images a short time ago, but could not load images to Lemmy… I’ll try again after this reply

At this time I can’t tell in the relatively low resolution image if it’s the same face we imaged before with the CacheCam last time

If it’s a different face we may have lost some of the core when it was returned to the cache.

Agreed re crawl. Some of that could have been the same DSN issues where commands for MSL were not uplinked due to tech issues at the DSN, some could have been missed for M2020.

NASA has recently suffered a bunch of staffing, with another 25% cut in the 2026 budget, with MSR effectively canceled, not the sort of thing that generates motivation if you ask me. :(

Pew pew pew! 😃

Gotta be a leak somewhere

Leaks are never a good thing, hopefully the backup has enough xenon to complete the mission

Probably picked up a nail.

I guess that’s a little better than picking up a hitchhiker ;)

Dropping a bit is one of the options they had, but there appears to be a little wear on some of the coring bits, so I assume that dropping a bit is probably not their preferred option after such an event. Hoping to see a mission update as to why the drilling operation was stalled, it could be as simple as a small movement on one of the wheels was detected.

Those look like flagstones.

You get a better view in the wider angel shots in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWAeUld_HD4

It doesn’t look like there is even an estimate yet of what part of the globe it will hit

Too early to predict that accurately. Our upper atmosphere expands and contracts depending on the activity of the sun, there can be large daily changes. An expanding atmosphere with slow the craft and it will de-obit quicker. A contracting atmosphere will allow the craft to stay in orbit a little longer. IIRC they won’t have an accurate time or a better idea of the impact site until about a day before reentry. I guess some folk are saying there is only a chance of making it to the surface as they don’t know if it is still intact.

At least one of the ‘experts’ that I’ve read firmly believes it will reach the surface as he analyzed its light curves a while back. I’m going with his prediction as that thing was built to survive tougher conditions than an Earth reentry. Odds are high that it will land in the ocean, but if it stays intact and hits land, then it’ll make a new hole in any golf coarse that happened to be in its cross hairs ;)

News media will likely start to report on it, as it gets closer to May 9th :)

Watch this space :)

New images up - just a few NavCam shots

Great News indeed…

And to top it off they also have a MastCam-Z of a rock core in the drill / sample tube… No images yet from the CacheCam, but I guess they will wait until they see the MastCam-Z images before they return the drill / core into the cache :)

Extract from the Wiki entry: “Its landing module, which weighs 495 kilograms (1,091 lb), is highly likely to reach the surface of Earth in one piece as it was designed to withstand 300 G’s of acceleration and 100 atmospheres of pressure…”

That thing will make a mighty splash if it hits the ocean, either that or generate a good sized crater

Multiple sols with no public data from Percy

I just checked again, still no recent images. It’s normal after such an incident for the rovers to go quite while they decide on the best way forward. I would assume they are trying to recreate the issue on the rover in the mars yard facility. I’ve had a few looks at the DSN to see if they are communicating directly with the rover, as that is a good sign that they are getting engineering data directly rather than going through one of the orbiters. I’ve not seen any direct comms sessions direct on the DSN, but that could just be bad timing of my visits. I’ll check again today :) Fingers crossed they get Percy back in action soon :)

Episode 212

Collecting samples on Mars has gone remarkably well considering how challenging it is to operate a drill rig on another planet. But the most recent coring operation was notably dynamic and the drill hasn’t moved for days.

Two sols have passed, and the coring drill is still embedded inside the rock…

I believe it’s a unique situation, I’m checking image downloads every few hours to see if they can free the drill. I guess many things could force a trip, high on my list would be a slip by one or more wheels while coring, second would be movement of the slab during coring. They can leave a stuck bit in the ground by commanding a release from the chuck, but I assume that would be the least desired option. If you recall they left the launch abrading bit in a rock early in the mission as there was no space for it inside the carousel.

From what I hear from insiders it’s not a pretty picture. Staff cuts have had a huge impact on the Mars missions, it’s surprising some outreach functions are still working. The MSL raw image server is very fragile recently and goes down on a frequent basis. I have nothing but praise for those remaining staff for doing their best for holding what’s left together. The redesign of the mission pages was a disaster, but there’s no going back on that by the looks of things. I’m expecting what’s left to deteriorate further if additional cuts are made. Watch this space

And they just bumped up to a new workspace… (1078) :) Arm work to follow :)

Map : Headed back to a region previously explored

Pity that it’s not an automatic process, but it seems that it’s a rather complex process that has to be adjusted for each batch of images. However the MastCam-Z team at MSSS do a great job of keeping up with the huge numbers of images gathered

What is up with the colour

I’m assuming you’re referring to the overall image quality?

If so it’s a raw image (calibrated) Here’s an earlier image of an abrasion bit inspection that has been calibrated by the MastCam-Z team (Sol 1447)

It is an imprint of the abrasion tool that grinds away the weathered surface of rocks so the chemistry of the rock can be measured with the rovers instruments