Sols 4116-4117: Rover Kinesthetics

Earth planning date: Monday, March 4, 2024

It has been a busy and exciting week for Curiosity and its science team. Our intrepid rover successfully drilled its 40th sample on Mars and today followed it up with an intensive campaign to characterize the tailings expelled while drilling “Mineral King.” When APXS analyzes a target, it receives signals from the top millimeter or less of the sample (similar to ChemCam, depending on the number of laser pulses conducted). Drilled material extracted by Curiosity and fed to SAM and/or CheMin, however, is typically extracted from 2+ cm below the surface. Drill tailings therefore provide APXS (and ChemCam) a more representative sample of the material analyzed by CheMin and/or SAM than pre-drill analyses of the target surface. Given images acquired previously showed a visually heterogeneous tailings pile, the 4116-4117 plan focused in part on acquiring MAHLI images and APXS analyses of not one but two spots on Mineral King's tailings.

Other activities in the plan included ChemCam analyses and Mastcam imaging of the targets “Roaring River” and “Big Meadows” as well as further photometry experiments. Images were also acquired post-APXS of the tailings pile as well as of various rover components such as the drill bit and the CheMin inlet cover. Environmental monitoring activities rounded out the plan.

This summary of today's plan certainly does not do the rover nor science and engineering team any justice given the complexity of its execution. In order to acquire all the MAHLI images and APXS data in the plan, there were six distinct arm segments, referred to as “arm backbones.” All told, a pretty impressive display of kinesthetics by Mars’ eldest rover.

Written by Scott VanBommel, Planetary Scientist at Washington University