The Rover chooses a safe route when it drives autonomously to the designated points using its on-board computer to analyze the stereo images which it takes during the pauses in the drive. The Mars Rover Curiosity has come to about 80 meters away from "Cooperstown". This is a place which is suitable candidate for the examination with on-board instruments on the Rover's arm. Curiosity has not used its arm-mounted instruments to examine a target since 22nd Sept., 2013 while departing from a place called "Darwin". The researchers used the arm's camera and spectrometer for four days at Darwin on 22nd Sept., 2013.
The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center in the above picture is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.
The mission's main destination is the Mount Sharp. Curiosity began its trek of 8.6 Kms starting from an area where it worked for first half of 2013, heading towards Mount Sharp. The NASA research team used the images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to plot the route and choose a few points of special interest along the way which include Darwin and Cooperstown.
One of the key activities planned for the first week of November, 2013 is uploading a new version of onboard Software - the third such upgrade since landing of the rover. The software updates allow continued advances in the capabilities of the rover. The version prepared for upload in first week of November, 2013 includes, for example, improvements in what information the rover can store overnight to resume autonomous driving the next day. It also expands capabilities for using the robotic arm while parked on slopes. The team expects that to be crucial for investigations on Mount Sharp.
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