Curiosity update: ‘Longer drive’

Sol 952, April 10, 2015, update from USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: MSL drove 18 meters on Sol 951, as planned, putting the rover in position to image the terrain ahead and plan a longer drive on Sol 952.  The total “wheel odometry” for the MSL mission is now over 10 km!  But the total traverse distance is still less than 10 km, because the wheels sometimes slip while driving, and the wheel odometry does not take slippage into account.  So we’re not quite ready to celebrate like the Mars Exploration project did when Opportunity recently completed the first extraterrestrial marathon. The focus of scientific observation planning has been to get good images of the terrain as we continue driving, and before the Sol 952 drive the ChemCam RMI and Mastcam stereo cameras will… [More at link]