NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/pixelart/p/1564219/perseverance-landing-but-instead-of-the-giant-parachute-it-s-ingenuity

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated context map of Percy’s whereabouts for this sol below. The outer rim of Jezero Crater is on the right. The sites of the most recent rock abrasions, #50 and #51, are labelled in red. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Detailed map of the rover's whereabouts this sol below:

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated context map of Percy’s whereabouts for this sol below. The nearest portion of the Jezero Crater outer rim is on the lower right. The sites of the most recent rock abrasions, #50 and #51, are labelled in red. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Detailed map of the rover's whereabouts below:

R-MastCam-Z - Sol 1703 - December 04 2025 Processed cropped. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Left Mastcam-Z camera, acquired on December 7, 2025 (Sol 1706) 13:37 LMST. Processed / Cropped Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Sol 1704 (December 5, 2025)

Here's a post drive NavCam acquired after the 40 minute drive to the north, we can see some of the tracks behind the rover in this image looking south.

Check the comments for the drive details and the revised map showing the new location

Image credits NASA/JPL-Caltech

A NavCam mosaic assembled from 6 tiles acquired after the drive to site 82.1486. The rover dropped 54 meters in elevation during the drive on December 2, 2025. Full details of the drive are attached, the maps are included in the comments section of this post

SHERLOC WATSON Cropped composite of three images assembled using MS-ICE. Looking at the other images gathered, it appears ad though they were inspecting the large round SuperCam window. The rover fires its laser at rocks and soils through that window, using its optics to analyze its targets by optical emission, and to acquire images of the targets using its RMI camera (Remote Microscopic Imager). November 28, 2025 (Sol 1697) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

MastCam-Z: Checking out the dark capping rocks on a nearby hill, before the rover drove to the southwest later in the day.

Image acquired during sol 1687. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU/Kevin M Gill

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s present whereabouts, beyond the Jezero Crater rim, below. The site of the most recent rock abrasion, #50, is labelled. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s present whereabouts, beyond the Jezero Crater rim, below. The site of the most recent rock abrasion, #50, is labelled. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

(Mosaic above courtesy of u/paulhammond5155)

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s present whereabouts, beyond the Jezero Crater rim, below. The site of the most recent rock abrasion, #50, is labelled. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Perseverance rover acquired the base images for this composite image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on November 8, 2025 (Sol 1678) at the local mean solar time of 12:32

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s immediate whereabouts below. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Sol 1676 MastCam-Z at full zoom (110mm).

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s immediate whereabouts below. The rover’s current position is marked with a cross:

Further post-drive info for mission context

Updated map of Percy’s immediate whereabouts below. The rover's current position is marked with a cross:

As the animation shows, we seem to have an empty sample tube, which presumably means that the sample crumbled during coring.

I'm not surprised that we had a difficult time here - the rock in this area shifted and fractured before we ever drilled or abraded (even as Percy was driving over it), and we can see that we're dealing with a pretty messy scene:

Regular readers here will find this familiar - we've had sampling failures from our very first attempt on the crater floor a few months after landing, to our current operations on the crater rim, where we've had four such incidents before this latest, albeit in different terrains.

This is the first coring attempt in about 120 sols, our first on this particular section of the rim, where we've been for the last 2 months. We abraded here a few weeks ago (abrasion patch #48) and found a very interesting grab-bag of material (click through for more detail on the figure):

How about it, science team? This stuff seems like it's worth a second try, and this rover lives up to its name...