6 September 2018
Sols 2163-2164: Things that go Bump…
In our case, the Curiosity rover! The main focus of our 2-sol (sol – martian day) plan today is to bump (drive ~15 m) the rover into place for an attempt at drilling an interesting grey coloured patch of bedrock, identified from orbit within the Jura member of the Murray formation on the Vera Rubin Ridge, referred to as ‘Loch Eriboll.’
4 September 2018
Sols 2159-2162: Lots of Bits!
Curiosity’s plan for the weekend is extra large – 4 sols and almost 3 gigabits of data! We planned 4 sols due to the Labor Day weekend, and the hefty data volume is courtesy of extra downlink from two special orbiters.
3 September 2018
Sols 2157-2158: I’ll Take the Quela To Go, Please!
Today in Gale Crater, Curiosity begins with a short (but sweet) science block that utilizes ChemCam, Mastcam, and Navcam to observe the Martian surface and atmosphere.
30 August 2018
Sol 2156: The Story of Stoer
After an extremely productive couple of weeks, we are finishing up our work at Stoer! We’ll take some quick ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the tailings dump pile tosols before packing up and starting our drive up the ridge towards our next drill location.
29 August 2018
Sol 2155: What a Dump
Our second attempt at a dump was successful! The plan for Sol 2155 starts with a whole slew of Mastcam images to check out various components of the arm turret, plus a MAHLI observation of the dump pile.
28 August 2018
Sol 2154: Look on the sunny side
If all had gone according to plan over the weekend, we would see a nice pile of drill fines in the above image. Alas, a slight hiccup in the sample dump process meant that the ‘Stoer’ sample was still in the drill and turret.
26 August 2018
Sol 2150: Delivering the Proper Portions
The big question coming into today was whether to re-do the SAM analysis or not. Now that the drill is being operated with the feed immobile in the extended position, the portions (amount of drill tailings) that are delivered to CheMin and SAM are less accurate than before.
22 August 2018
Sol 2149: No Golf Courses on Mars…Yet
With seventeen sampling holes and several test holes, you might imagine that Curiosity is creating a rather long and erratic golf course in Gale crater. After all, Alan Shepard shot a golf ball on the Moon.
21 August 2018
Sol 2148: Well I’ll be DANed!
Curiosity is probing the subsurface today with its Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument. At three different times, Curiosity will use DAN in its ‘active’ mode for 20 minutes, sending pulses of neutrons into the ground beneath the rover, and then listening for the neutrons that are scattered back to the instrument.
20 August 2018
Sol 2147: SAM EGA on the Stoer Sample!
With the successful drilling of the Stoer target two weeks ago, Curiosity has been busy characterizing the surrounding terrain using its remote instrument package, performing contact science in the immediate vicinity to understand the composition and physical nature of the bedrock, and also performing power-intensive lab-quality analyses of the Stoer sample using its onboard analytical instruments.
