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5 October 2019
Sols 2546-2547: Brrrr – Is It Frosty?
Communicating with Curiosity requires creating a plan and transmitting it through various networks, including the Deep Space Network. Sometimes, one of these networks is down, and our plan does not get to the rover.
2 October 2019
Sol 2545: SAM Clean-Up and a Potpourri of Remote Sensing and Environmental Observations
Curiosity is continuing through its list of analysis details that take place after taking a drill sample. Today’s main activity is a SAM gas chromatograph column clean-up. Meanwhile, there is time to take environmental observations and more remote-sensing data.
30 September 2019
Sol 2540-2542: Go, SAM, go!
Curiosity’s late afternoon view: This image was taken by the Front Hazard Avoidance Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 2536 (2019-09-25 00:12:06 UTC). It shows the same view as the image in the sols 2538-2539 blog, just in a very different light!
Sol 2543: Dumping Dirt on its Back
This image shows nine laser pits forming a line down the “Glen Etive 2” drill hole. Shock waves from the laser impact at the lowest point cleared debris that had settled at the bottom of the hole to allow analysis of the hole wall at that depth.
26 September 2019
Sols 2538-2539: An Intermission Filled with Remote Sensing
Today started off with the news that yestersol‘s plan did not fully complete. There was an issue in the set of planned SAM activities that resulted in those activities not completing. While we diagnose the issue, we are taking a break from drill activities and filling the plan with lots of remote science.
24 September 2019
Sols 2536-2537: SAM Wet Chemistry Experiment
Searching for organic molecules in rocks on Mars is no easy task. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is designed to analyze the chemical composition of gases, which it creates by slowly heating rock samples in an oven.
20 September 2019
Sols 2533-2535: SAM’s Starring Role!
Planning for this past week has centered on analyzing the high potassium drill sample, Glen Etive 2, using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument.
19 September 2019
Sol 2531 – 2532: Three Portions to Inlet 1 and Straight on till SAM
In Monday’s plan, we did portion drop tests of our ‘Glen Etive 2’ drill sample, and this morning we were greeted with nice images of the sample piles.
16 September 2019
Sols 2525-2528: Go for Drilling at Glen Etive 2!
After studying the results from the ‘Glen Etive 1’ drill hole over conjunction, the team has decided to proceed with a second drill hole at a nearby location, dubbed ‘Glen Etive 2,’ (see above image) on the same rock slab. This second drill will allow us to do a more detailed set of SAM and CheMin analyses to better understand the composition of this rock.
11 September 2019
Sol 2524: The Tail(ings)-end of the Glen Etive 1 Drilling Campaign
The focus of Curiosity’s activities since returning to operations after conjunction, now that Mars has safely moved out from behind the sun, is to finish up the analyses associated with the drilling campaign at ‘Glen Etive 1.’
