NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA

NASA/JPL-Caltech

6-tile L-NavCam cropped mosaic, looking back at the climb out of the valley.

Drive distance: 35.4 meters (116.2 feet). Climb 10.46 meters: (34.3 feet). Distance to Helicopter: 1488.8 meters (4884.5 feet).

A little known feature of Perseverance is its two LEDs that emit UV light. They’re used to search for fluorescent minerals, like ones on Earth that produce strange colors in response to UV wavelengths. Now, it may have found some.

R-NavCam tile shows the latest abrasion patch on Mars.

Image acquired earlier today

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Episode 178 Mars rovers have a habit of picking up rocks in their open wheels and carrying them long distances. The latest Perseverance hitchhiker came on board three months ago and rode along for nearly 2 kilometers (~1.2 miles). But then the going got tough.

Mars Guy is Arizona State University associate research professor Dr. Steve Ruff, a Mars geologist with decades of experience exploring the red planet. This channel follows the exploration of Jezero crater by the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter, presenting science, engineering, and the search for life on Mars using a novel in-person experience.

The contour lines on this map are spaced 10 meters apart (32.8 feet)

We've got a lot of climbing ahead to traverse out of the crater.

Bright Angel is at the upper center of the map, it can be distinguished by its lighter tone compared with the darker surrounding bedrock and regolith

Image: HiRISE/CTX/HRSC HRSC: ESA/DLR/FU-BERLIN, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO CTX: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS HiRISE: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This data is imported from JPL's JSON feed. JPL updates the JSON feeds after each drive

Tiled front left HazCam:

Looking SSE and uphill after the drive of 17.6 meters (57.75 ft) during sol 1254.

Stitched together by James Sorenson from 12 overlapping tiles (view full screen for the details)

Credits - NASA/JPL-Caltech/James Sorenson

There was a 3 meter drive on 1253, the rear NavCam after that drive showed lots of wheel-slip in the soft regolith. We can interpret the wheel tracks in this 1254 post drive NavCam (6 tiles), it indicates the rover reversed away from the 1253 waypoint and drove onto this rocky region. I estimate the point-to-point distance between the waypoints is less than 20 meters. The rocky terrain should provide much better traction for the climb compared with the soft sandy regolith that appears to have terminated the 1253 drive early. As a bonus the new location also presents a nice robotic arm workspace, if they decide to check out the rocks just in front of the rover before the next drive.

End-of-drive tiled NavCam (4 tiles)

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Approximate locations of Perseverance rover and its sidekick Ingenuity helicopter during Sol 1250 (August 26, 2024). The view is looking due west, and shows the rover climbing up towards the crater rim after completing science activities in Neretva Vallis. The location of the helicopter is shown in final resting place after flight 72.

Image credits: HRSC: ESA/DLR/FU-BERLIN, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO CTX: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS HiRISE: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

North is up

End-of-drive tiled NavCam

In 2018, NASA selected Jezero crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover because it was thought to be the best place to search for evidence of life on Mars. So why after 3 ½ years of exploration has NASA decided to exit Jezero crater?