(ORDO NEWS) — After an extended stay on Wildcat Ridge, the Perseverance rover team is preparing to head southwest to another sedimentary outcrop in the Lake Crater delta called Enchanted Lake.
This place has fascinated our science team since we first visited it in April of this year.
The trip to the Enchanted Lake is expected to begin in the next few days, with arrival at the site in early September.
Before the trip begins, we will continue to evaluate two small, chunky foreign object debris (FOD) found on one of the rover cores.
The team feels comfortable moving forward with the progress made in researching these FODs. Since it was first detected on images from the rover’s sampling system on Aug.
5 following the 12th core sample, FOD has been the subject of several methodical diagnostic efforts in an attempt to better understand the nature of the stuck debris.
Our current state is reminiscent of another FOD issue we encountered in January of this year. Then it was small pebbles stuck in the carousel of bits (drills).
While we knew the carousel was reliable and built to work in a messy environment, we took our time to better understand the situation before moving on. I think it will be the same here.
Our drill is also reliable and designed to work in dirty environments.
This, combined with the fact that we have not found any new debris, gives us confidence that we can begin to move forward in our scientific exploration of the Lake Delta, continuing to do our best to better understand the origin of the stuck debris.
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