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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.
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.
17 September 2019
Sols 2529-2530: #23!
Please welcome our 23rd drill hole on Mars! Coming in at ~43 mm depth, and both the rover and new drill hole are happy and healthy!
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.’
10 September 2019
Sol 2523: Picking Up Where We Left Off
Today is our first planning sol following solar conjunction. For the past few weeks, Mars and Earth have been on opposite sides of the Sun, preventing routine communications with Curiosity. Our rover spent most of the time sleeping, with some routine environmental monitoring with REMS and RAD and occasional Hazcam images like the one shown.
