Curiosity on the way to the top

Rather, to Mount Sharp, which has long been disturbing the minds of scientists trying to explain the origin of this geological object. So, for about six months, the Curiosity rover explored a relatively small region, the area of ​​which is smaller than the area of ​​a standard football field. Very soon, the rover will go to the base of Mount Sharp, and this is 8 kilometers from the current position of the device.

Of course, Curiosity will have to spend a lot of time overcoming such a long stretch of track (until now, the total length of the rover’s path was a little more than half a kilometer). But if until now Curiosity has investigated almost every crack that falls on the way, now it will have to accelerate - scientists will only explore the most interesting objects on the way to the mountain, and the rover itself will have to go the way with maximum speed.
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By the way, now the rover operators have learned to save time on examining samples - after drilling, the device can continue to move, and the resulting materials are studied later. If you find something interesting, there is always the possibility to return to the previous paragraph.

In addition, the improved procedure for the autonomous operation of the rover allows it to work more time with relatively less control by the operators, so that more operations are performed in a certain period of time.

Curiosity adequately fulfilled the first stage of its mission, and now scientists hope to learn more about other parts of the surface of the Red Planet. Hopefully, the mission will continue smoothly.

Via Space.com