NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Reroutes Away From 'Gator-Back' Rocks

[Still Waters]

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spent most of March climbing the “Greenheugh Pediment” – a gentle slope capped by rubbly sandstone. The rover briefly summited this feature’s north face two years ago; now on the pediment’s southern side, Curiosity has navigated back onto the pediment to explore it more fully.

But on March 18, the mission team saw an unexpected terrain change ahead and realized they would have to turn around: The path before Curiosity was carpeted with more wind-sharpened rocks, or ventifacts, than they have ever seen in the rover’s nearly 10 years on the Red Planet.

Ventifacts chewed up Curiosity’s wheels earlier in the mission. Since then, rover engineers have found ways to slow wheel wear, including a traction control algorithm, to reduce how frequently they need to assess the wheels. And they also plan rover routes that avoid driving over such rocks, including these latest ventifacts, which are made of sandstone – the hardest type of rock Curiosity has encountered on Mars.

The team nicknamed their scalelike appearance “gator-back” terrain. Although the mission had scouted the area using orbital imagery, it took seeing these rocks close-up to reveal the ventifacts.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9163/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-reroutes-away-from-gator-back-rocks/