NASA's Curiosity rover is having a few days break from travelling to give its arm a work out.
The rover, which has so far driven 358 feet (109 metres) from its landing site, is making its way across Gale Crater.
Having covered about one fourth of the distance to Glenelg, which is 400 metres for the rover's landing site, Curiosity paused on flat ground and extended its 7 foot (2.1 metre) arm which operates a number of Curiosity's tools.
Michael Watkins, the mission manager, explained: "We knew at some point we were going to need to stop and take a week or so for these characterisation activities. For these checkouts, we need to turn to a particular angle in relation to the sun and on flat ground. We could see before the latest drive that this looked like a perfect spot to start these activities."
We're still learning how to use the rover. It's such a complex machine -- the learning curve is steep
Joy Crisp, JPL
"These activities are important to get a better understanding for how the arm functions after the long cruise to Mars and in the different temperature and gravity of Mars, compared to earlier testing on Earth," said
Daniel Limonadi.
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