NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 2005 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The science team today had a few tough decisions to make to balance time and power. The three activities that must be balanced were arm activities (including high-resolution imaging and chemistry measurements), remote activities (including multispectral imaging and remote chemistry analyses), and driving to our next location along the Vera Rubin Ridge. The team obviously doesn't want to drive away from interesting locations that haven't been fully investigated, so there was a lot of discussion regarding whether we've fully characterized this extremely interesting region. At the end of the discussion, the team decided to forego any arm activities, which would allow Curiosity to obtain several more remote measurements before hitting the road towards the next location. The plan is for Curiosity to begin her drive eastward in the early afternoon, towards another well-exposed outcrop on top of the Vera Rubin Ridge.
Curiosity will begin her science investigations around 10:45am local time, when she will acquire Mastcam multispectral data for three science targets investigated over the previous two days ("Stranraer," "Burghead," and "Walls Peninsula"), in addition to a multispectral image of the calibration target. Curiosity will then switch to ChemCam chemistry observations of the red nodular rock target "Sullom Voe." These chemistry observations will include five times more laser pulses than typical ChemCam measurements, as the team is hoping to investigate whether we can see compositional variations as the laser pulses bore deeper and deeper into the rock surface. A more typical ChemCam chemistry measurement will then be made on the target "Papa Stour," a fractured and potentially vein-rich piece of outcrop in front of the rover. Following these chemistry measurements, Mastcam will again be put to use to acquire high-resolution color images of the targets "Muckle Roe" and "Mousa Broch," two high-standing rocks with interesting erosion patterns, as well as a context image of "Sullom Voe" for ChemCam context imaging. Curiosity will then finish her scientific activities with black-and-white Navcam images to search for dust devils in Gale crater. After Curiosity's drive, she will acquire standard post-drive imaging in preparation for the science team to interpret all of the data and the rover's workspace tomorrow morning!
With the exception of the targets "Stranraer" and "Burghead," which were both selected in previous sols, all of today's targets are named after features or locations in the Shetland Islands located northeast of Great Britain. As exclaimed by our geology science theme lead John Bridges (himself in the United Kingdom at the University of Leicester) after selecting target names, "today is a Shetland day!" It's only appropriate that we're investigating Shetland-named targets here up on the Vera Rubin Ridge, where red rock targets are distributed throughout the workspace. The Shetland Islands host numerous outcrops of the Devonian-aged Old Red Sandstone, which are fossil-bearing red-hued sedimentary rocks. Here's to hoping to someday explore fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks on Mars!
About this Blog
These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Contributors
Sterling Algermissen
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Atmospheric Scientist; Texas A&M University; College Station, TX
Kristen Bennett
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Fred Calef
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Brittney Cooper
Atmospheric Scientist; York University; Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sean Czarnecki
Planetary Geologist; Arizona State University; Tempe, AZ
Lauren Edgar
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Christopher Edwards
Planetary Geologist; Northern Arizona University; Flagstaff, AZ
Abigail Fraeman
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Scott Guzewich
Atmospheric Scientist; NASA/GSFC; Greenbelt, MD
Samantha Gwizd
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Ken Herkenhoff
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Rachel Kronyak
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Sarah Lamm
Planetary Geologist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Michelle Minitti
Planetary Geologist; Framework; Silver Spring, MD
Claire Newman
Atmospheric Scientist, Aeolis Research; Pasadena, CA
Catherine O’Connell
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Melissa Rice
Planetary Geologist; Western Washington University; Bellingham, WA
Mark Salvatore
Planetary Geologist; University of Michigan; Dearborn, MI
Susanne Schwenzer
Planetary Geologist; The Open University; Milton Keynes, U.K.
Ashley Stroupe
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Dawn Sumner
Planetary Geologist; University of California Davis; Davis, CA
Vivian Sun
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Lucy Thompson
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Ashwin Vasavada
MSL Project Scientist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Roger Wiens
Geochemist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Tools on the Curiosity Rover
The Curiosity rover has tools to study clues about past and present environmental conditions on Mars, including whether conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life. The rover carries:
Today was a very busy planning day for the Curiosity operations team. We planned a 3-sol plan, with contact science, imaging, environmental monitoring and a drive.
Similar to its namesake in Scotland, the Glen Torridon area on Mars affords us stunning vistas, but in our case, of the relatively low-lying clay bearing (from orbit) unit flanked to the north by the higher ground of the Vera Rubin Ridge and to the south, by Mount Sharp.
The accompanying image shows the target "Brent" in the lower right corner; it was analyzed with ChemCam and APXS, and imaged with MAHLI over the weekend.
Curiosity successfully completed her drive yesterday and is currently parked on top of one of the ridges ("Knockfarril Hill") in the clay-bearing unit.
This weekend's plan started off on Sol 2301 with some Mastcam atmospheric observations, followed by ChemCam analysis of "Loch Ness" and "Loch Skeen," examples of brown and gray bedrock.
Curiosity is continuing the first phase of its journey to the "clay-bearing unit," the low elevation portion in the middle distance of this Navcam image with a series of "touch-and-go" driving sols.
Curiosity has moved for the first time since December 13, 2018. More importantly, Curiosity is moving to a new geological unit that we have so far called the "Clay-Bearing Unit".
Sometimes the best laid plans of rovers go astray. After wrapping up at the Rock Hall drill site yesterday, the plan was for Curiosity to start driving towards the clay-bearing unit, starting with a series of small bumps so that MAHLI could take images of the full outer circumference of the wheels.
Today was our last day at "Rock Hall," so it was our final chance to get every last bit of science at this location. We had a 2.5 hour science block filled with Mastcam change detection imaging of the Rock Hall drill fines and alternating ChemCam RMI and LIBS observations of the Rock Hall dump pile, drill tailings, and target "St.Cyrus 2."
Today we planned a single sol of activities, Sol 2291. As we begin to wrap up our activities at the Rock Hall drill site, Sol 2291 is chock full of science observations. We'll begin the sol with an hour-long science block.
We will soon be leaving the Rock Hall area, thus this one last look at the drill site from a hazard camera perspective. Seeing those holes always is special, even for #19!
Our onboard instruments SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) and CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) have come to the end of their investigation of the Rock Hall target, likely to be our last drill location on the Vera Rubin Ridge, so this 2-sol plan is the beginning of the drill operation wrap up.
Today was a very smooth planning day on Mars, with the first scheduled science block in the plan being entirely filled by various spectroscopic ChemCam observations. The ChemCam instrument has the capabilities to be used in both passive and active modes, both of which were included in today's plan.
Today we are continuing the drill campaign at our red Jura target "Rock Hall." The focus of this weekend's plan is the dropoff of the Rock Hall sample to the SAM instrument, which will occur on Sol 2281.
The holiday planning completed successfully and included 10 sols of five-hour-long morning meteorological observations by REMS, during the period when more complex activities were precluded.
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