You are browsing the archive for Field Work.
12 February 2018
Sol 1963: Getting ready for the SAM geochronology experiment
Over the weekend Curiosity drove ~52 m to the northeast to another patch of gray bedrock. The team is interested in characterizing the gray bedrock to determine if we might want to drill here.
10 February 2018
Sols 1961-1962: Final call
Today we planned for a weekend of activities at the same location Curiosity has been at all week. While we’re ready and eager to see some new terrain, we had no shortage of interesting science targets to fill our plan.
7 February 2018
Sols 1959-1960: Old site, new tricks
We took advantage of the fact that Curiosity has been parked at this same site for several sols to acquire both new and less-common types of observations.
5 February 2018
Sol 1957-1958: Onward towards gray patch
Over the past several months Curiosity has made excellent progress up and along the Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR), taking stunning mosaics and using our instrument payload to examine the local geology.
3 February 2018
Sol 1954-1956: Groundhog Day Across the Solar System
Planning Curiosity’s activities on February 2nd, 2018, aka sol 1954 – 1956, felt a little bit like Groundhog Day on Mars.
1 February 2018
Sols 1952-1953: Another "touch and go"
Today is my father’s 88th birthday and the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first US satellite, Explorer 1. This reminds me how fortunate his generation is to have witnessed the historic first steps into space…
29 January 2018
Sol 1950-1951: North by northeast
Curiosity is back on Vera Rubin Ridge today after a short diversion into the phyllosilicate unit. Our workspace this morning contained rocks in various shades of red.
28 January 2018
Sol 1947-1949: I love it when a plan comes together
Going in to planning today, there was a concern that we would run up against constraints on power and complexity that might force us to eliminate some of the science we wanted to do. Thankfully, that did not end up being the case and nothing had to be removed!
24 January 2018
Sol 1945-46: Heading back to the main road
Our most recent drive put us near the edge of the Vera Rubin Ridge, overlooking the ‘clay unit’ (the upper portion of this image) that Curiosity will eventually reach, but not yet!
22 January 2018
Sol 1943: From the South Rim of Vera Rubin Ridge
Having spent 1943 sols on the surface of Mars, Curiosity is in its 6th Earth year on Mars, but it is in its 3rd Mars year of exploration. That means Curiosity has encountered this season of the year twice before.
