Watch Mars 2020 rover assembly via JPL webcam

A newly installed webcam offers the public a live, bird’s-eye view of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover as it takes shape at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. You can watch as JPL engineers and technicians assemble and test the rover before it embarks next year on one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed.

“There is so much happening and changing in the clean room, I come here every opportunity I get,” said Mars 2020 project manager John McNamee of JPL. “It is great that we can share this part of our journey to the Red Planet with the public anytime they want.”

Affectionately called “Seeing 2020,” the webcam provides the video feed (without audio) from a viewing gallery above the clean room floor... [More at link; JPL operates on Pacific time]

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Latest weather at Gale Crater and Elysium Planitia

Daily Elysium charts and data (temperature, wind speed, atmospheric pressure)

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Curiosity: Where next?

2429-navcam-frontSol 2429, June 7, 2019. Two Navcam composites, one forward-facing (above) and one to the rear, show Curiosity’s surroundings. Click either image to enlarge it.

Sol 2428 raw images (from all cameras).

2429-navcam-rear

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HiRISE: In western Mawrth Vallis

ESP_059738_2050In western Mawrth Vallis. The layered deposits here exhibit strong and diverse spectral signatures of clays.

HiRISE Picture of the Day archive. [More at links]

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THEMIS: Faulting in Labeatis Fossae

Labeatis Fossae (THEMIS_IOTD_20190607)THEMIS Image of the Day, June 7, 2019. The linear depressions in this VIS image were created by tectonic forces. The sides of the depression are faults.

Paired faults will allow the block of material between them to “slide down” during marsquake events, forming the depressions. The faulting may also release groundwater, undermining the slopes as it flows and carries away sediments.

Explore more THEMIS Images of the Day by geological subject.

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Curiosity update: A ‘no-touch-and-go’

NRB_612963235EDR_F0752860NCAM00207M_-br2Sols 2429-30, June 6, 2019, update by MSL scientist Brittney Cooper: The original plan for Sol 2429 involved a “touch-and-go” where the rover would have engaged in contact science (that’s the “touch” portion) followed by a drive (the “go” portion), but through discussion the instrument leads determined tactically that they were satisfied with the contact science already acquired at this location. Thus, we planned a “no-touch-and-go,” and were able to take the time planned for contact science and use it to extend the length of a remote sensing science block before the drive.

This science block contains two Mastcam multi-filter observations, a 10×1 ChemCam raster on target “Awe,” a 5×1 raster on target “Castle Rock,” and a Mastcam stereo mosaic to capture nearby gravel. Curiosity will then drive an hour and twenty minutes, and wrap up the sol with some post-drive imaging of the new workspace, a Mastcam tau to measure atmospheric opacity, and a post-drive DAN active. For those not familiar, a post-drive DAN active consists of the DAN instrument shooting neutrons into the ground and measuring the energy of the reflected neutrons to detect hydrogen just below the surface. A DAN active occurs after every drive so that the DAN team can acquire these measurements at every… [More at link]

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The evolution of Endeavour Crater

figure-27[Editor’s note: From a paper by Madison Hughes and five co-authors recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.]

Degradation of Endeavour Crater Based on Orbital and Rover‐Based Observations in Combination With Landscape Evolution Modeling

• Landscape evolution modeling indicates that Endeavour experienced an early period of fluvial erosion in a semiarid environment
• Since the deposition of the Grasberg and Burns formation rocks, wind erosion has excavated interior deposits and eroded the crater rim
• Up to ~400 m of Burns formation rocks have been excavated from the interior of Endeavour crater

The Opportunity Rover explored the rim of the Noachian age Endeavour crater from 2010 to 2018. Only small segments of its rim are exposed above a regional sulfate‐bearing sandstone unit called the Burns formation. By studying the morphology of these rim segments with orbital data sets and observations from Opportunity, the history of the degradation of the crater was identified.

The nearby Bopolu crater is similar in size to Endeavour but is younger and fresher. Simulating the erosion of Bopolu to create a crater rim that looks similar to Endeavour’s current rim shows that Endeavour experienced a late Noachian period of fluvial erosion in an arid environment. Erosion lowered the crater rim by ~0.3 km, routing ~0.5‐km thick section of sediment into the crater interior, where a very shallow lake was likely present.

Endeavour was then partially buried by Grasberg and Burns formation rocks. Since then, regional winds coming from the east have excavated some of the interior sandstone unit in Endeavour and carved into the interior rim, including Perseverance Valley. [More at link]

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Curiosity: Woodland Bay under scrutiny

FRB_613038702EDR_F0752860FHAZ00341M_Sol 2428, June 5, 2019. The right front Hazcam shows the multi-layered outcrop named Woodland Bay getting the close-up treatment by Curiosity’s instrument arm. Click the image to enlarge it.

Sol 2428 raw images (from all cameras).

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Mars 2020 helicopter enters final testing phase

NASA’s Mars Helicopter flight demonstration project has passed a number of key tests with flying colors. In 2021, the small, autonomous helicopter will be the first vehicle in history to attempt to establish the viability of heavier-than-air vehicles flying on another planet.

“Nobody’s built a Mars Helicopter before, so we are continuously entering new territory,” said MiMi Aung, project manager for the Mars Helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Our flight model – the actual vehicle that will travel to Mars – has recently passed several important tests.”

Back in January 2019 the team operated the flight model in a simulated Martian environment. Then the helicopter was moved to Lockheed Martin Space in Denver for compatibility testing with the Mars Helicopter Delivery System, which will hold the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) spacecraft against the belly of the Mars 2020 rover during launch and interplanetary cruise before deploying it onto the surface of Mars after landing.

As a technology demonstrator, the Mars Helicopter carries no science instruments. Its purpose is to confirm that powered flight in the tenuous Martian atmosphere (which has 1% the density of Earth’s) is possible and that it can be controlled from Earth over large interplanetary distances. But the helicopter also carries a camera capable of providing high-resolution color images to further demonstrate the vehicle’s potential for documenting the Red Planet… [More at link]

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HiRISE: A work of art

ESP_059635_1635A work of art. An impressionist painting? No, it’s a new impact crater that has appeared on the surface of Mars, formed at most between September 2016 and February 2019. What makes this stand out is the darker material exposed beneath the reddish dust. (Special thanks to Nahúm Méndez Chazarra.)

HiRISE Picture of the Day archive. [More at links]

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