You are browsing the archive for Field Work.
15 May 2017
Sols 1698-1699: It’s Touch and Go on the Climb to Vera Rubin Ridge
The road to Vera Rubin Ridge, a feature believed to be enriched in the mineral hematite, is getting steeper, so we are stopping frequently to study the composition of the bedrock beneath our wheels.
14 May 2017
Sols 1695 -1697: Observations of land, rover and sky
Curiosity continued her detailed investigation of the interesting suite of outcrops we have been picking our way across during the last week. As we climb up Mount Sharp, recently over slopes of 4-6 degrees, we have seen more varied outcrop structures and chemistries than the rest of the Murray formation, and such changes catch the collective eye of the team.
9 May 2017
Sol 1692: Science frenzy!
After the drive on Sol 1691, the workspace in front of the Curiosity rover had plenty of interesting rocks in front of us to keep us busy.
Sols 1693-1694: Remote science and onward!
Today we planned two sols, 1693 and 1694. On the first sol, we will conduct a suite of remote science observations before driving away and resuming our trek up Mount Sharp.
Sol 1691: Stopped Short at Green Nubble
The weekend drive stopped a little bit short of the target, but that’s ok because it put the Curiosity rover in reach of some interesting cross-bedded rocks. We decided to do a “touch and go” plan for Sol 1691, quickly analyzing the rocks in front of us and then continuing on to the original drive destination.
8 May 2017
Sol 1688 – 1690: Sand between our grousers
We’ve been getting some really interesting data down from our investigation of a large sand drift (megaripple), so we packed in many more observations to assess the full variability of the sandy materials before driving away and continuing our climb up Mt. Sharp.
6 May 2017
Sol 1687: Mega-science at a megaripple!
The Curiosity rover planners executed another great drive to park us in front of a megaripple in order to study its physical and chemical characteristics, which we can compare and contrast to the sands we investigated during our recent Bagnold dune campaign.
3 May 2017
Sol 1686: March to the Megaripples
Continuing the steady march up Mt. Sharp, Curiosity drove 18.3 m to bring us closer to a series of features being called megaripples, which are darker and larger ripples than were seen on the Bagnold Dunes.
2 May 2017
Sol 1685: Touch and Go or Just Go (Again)?
Planning rover science activities is a dynamic process. Unlike yestersol‘s plan, the Geology Theme Group decided to include an APXS and MAHLI “touch-and-go” in the plan, carrying out valuable contact science on the layered Murray bedrock.
1 May 2017
Sol 1684: Touch and Go or Just Go?
Today was a day of tradeoffs. Should Curiosity focus on driving to get to a higher priority target sooner, or conduct contact science at the current location?
