“We had been mainly enjoying fault bingo,” stated Dane Schoelen, Curiosity’s strategic route planning lead at JPL. “Every day after we got here in, we’d discover out we faulted for one purpose or one other.”
As a substitute of constant to wrestle with the unique course, Schoelen and his colleagues put collectively a lateral detour, eyeing a spot roughly 492 ft (150 meters) away the place the incline leveled out. At the least, it appeared to: Planners depend on imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to get a tough sense of the terrain, however photos captured from area can’t present precisely how steep a slope is or whether or not boulders are there.
The detour would add a number of weeks to the journey to Jau – until the terrain was hiding extra surprises. If that had been the case, the detour might need been for nothing, and the workforce’s scientists must maintain on the lookout for one other path up Mount Sharp.
Luckily, the detour paid off, permitting Curiosity to crest the slope.
“It felt nice to lastly recover from the ridge and see that tremendous vista,” Schoelen stated. “I get to take a look at photos of Mars all day lengthy, so I actually get a way of the panorama. I usually really feel like I’m standing proper there subsequent to Curiosity, trying again at how far it has climbed.”
