Sol 1780: Five (Earth) Years on Mars

We kicked off Curiosity operations this morning with the news that our previous drive did not complete as planned.

After a successful 13 meter weekend drive, Curiosity finds itself in the middle of “Marker Band” valley.

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3574.

It was a busy day for the Curiosity uplink team! After our arm activity and data volume restrictions described by Lucy Thompson from last plan, we came in today with ~120% downlinked data performan...

We are almost through Paraitepuy pass, an area between two large buttes that has made for tricky driving while dealing with communication challenges, sand and broken-up rocks.

Today we planned a single sol plan cramming lots of science into a small plan, before driving in the afternoon.

Coming in to work on the three-sol plan for the weekend, we were met with another set of stunning Images of the landscape around us.

This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3565.

Image of obstacles, large ripples and several boulders, that guard the Paraitepuy Pass.

Left navigation camera image, showing Orninoco and Kukenán buttes.

Curiosity is continuing the journey through Paraitepuy Pass. The image above shows why it is going to take some time to traverse through this area. Here the navigation cameras snapped a photo of Cu...

Curiosity is continuing to press on through Paraitepuy Pass with the successful completion of last plan’s drive and another coming up on the first sol of today’s two-sol plan.

Curiosity continues to conquer obstacles as we enter our 11th year of operations on Mars.

“We’ve got thumbnails!!” shouted, emotionally, over excited celebrations, is my most intense memory from 10 years ago.

Tosol we uplinked a two-sol plan as Curiosity continues to navigate "Paraitepuy Pass."

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.

This image was taken by Mast Camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3545.

This image was taken by Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3543.

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3544.

We have come to the end of our detour to image the "Bolivar" butte and are starting back to the MSAR (Mount Sharp Ascent Route).

Some planning days are more complicated than others, not because Mars throws us a curve ball, that happens, too, as regular readers of this blog will know. No, sometimes it’s just plain old compute...

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3536 (2022-07-18 09:16:22 UTC).

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3536.

This Front Hazard Camera from Sol 3533 shows the boulder “Ilha Nova Destino.”

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3531.

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3530.

The MAHLI images acquired on Sol 3528 confirm that the APXS was well placed over the Avanavero drill tailings, and the APXS data look good so we are ready to drive away from this location.

Both the CheMin and SAM instruments have dined on the Avanavero drill samples and have decided their appetites are sated.

Tosol’s plan included a little bit of everything, with more than four hours of remote science spread over three sols.

Curiosity is continuing to proceed through our pre-planned checklist of activities that we’ve made for drill campaigns.

After a successful drilling of Avanavero, the team is ready to dig even deeper into our investigation of this new drill target.

The MSL team is very happy today, because our first drill attempt since last November was successful!

Today was an exciting day of planning (and not just because of the thunderstorms here in southern California!). We planned a full drill of Avanavero, our first drill in over 6 months!

It has been almost 8 months to the day since Curiosity powered up its drill and extracted tailings from a Gale crater rock.

This weekend plan is a four sol plan to allow a no planning day on Monday, for the commemoration of “Juneteenth,” and we crammed a lot in.

The difficulty of driving on Martian terrain proves itself once again! Our Sol 3504 drive did not complete successfully, leaving us in a basically the same spot as our last plan.

The Sol 3496 (last Monday) plan did not execute due to an issue onboard the rover that took a few days to investigate.

Our drive was successful, and we ended with some lovely flat bedrock with some gorgeous veining running through it. As APXS payload uplink lead today, I saw several targets that the APXS team would...

We’re heading into a packed weekend, after a successful drive putting us in a great location with some really beautiful views.

Today in tactical planning I was staffed as Surface Properties Scientist, which means I get to put my geology field experience hat on and work with the rover drivers to assess the terrain we’ll cro...

Our intrepid rover engineers again successfully navigated Curiosity a little higher up Mount Sharp (~5 m) and ~40 m on the ground, away from our previous location.

The Sol 3483 drive completed as planned, positioning the rover near several outcrops of knobby material and more "normal" looking bedrock.

On this Monday 2-sol plan, I was one of three Rover Planners. I took the role of Arm Rover Planner, sequencing the contact science. I also helped to review the drive.

Coming into planning on Friday, we were greeted with a beautiful vista, with well preserved layering and amazing outcrops, and a reminder of just how stunning the planet Mars is.

Despite the incredibly rough terrain surrounding Mirador butte, our nearly 10-year-old rover successfully drove a net distance forward ~10 meters and ~2 meters in elevation!

Curiosity continues to navigate challenging terrain.

We drove just over 30 metres in the last plan, reaching today’s location.

After a successful 47m drive with ~5 m of elevation gain by Curiosity yestersol, we arrived at more new and interesting terrain to investigate!

Curiosity is getting a good start to the week! The weekend plan completed successfully, leaving some great rover tracks behind us as seen in the attached picture.

It’s been a challenging week in Gale crater, but Curiosity and the rover team are ready to put those challenges behind us as we head into a busy weekend plan.

We have cleared the “Greenheugh pediment” and the mix of sandy, steep, and rough terrain that challenged our drives up and down it.

On sol 3415 we encountered what we unofficially dubbed ‘Gator Back’ terrain and decided to not fight the “creature” on the expense of our wheels but rather to turn around and go back.

Our previous drive was successful, leaving us at our third and final imaging stop of the pediment.

We have left the pediment behind and are making our way back to an alternate “MSAR” or “Mount Sharp Ascent Route.”

While angular, pointy rocks have damaged the rover's wheels since early in the MSL mission, sometimes the wheels damage rocks as the rover drives over them.

Our weekend drive brought us successfully to our planned stop.

Entering the weekend, we have a few more 'rad' rocks we'd like to get some science on before we drive farther away from the Greenheugh pediment and begin our journey again up Mt. Sharp.

Not that it matters… but exactly 100 sols ago, on January 7th, we were planning sols 3351 and 3352... and it was this blogger’s turn to report on what was happening.

After spending the last few weeks exploring the top of the nearby pediment surface, Curiosity is now making her way back down from the pediment and towards an alternate route to Gediz Vallis Ridge.

Due to some complex terrain, the rover’s last drive came up about ten meters short of the target destination.

Tosol's plan is focusing on examination of the linear ridges that cross-cut the local terrain.

In Scots Gaelic, “deoch-an-doris” loosely means “one for the road.” Today we planned one more set of investigations on the fascinating Feorachas outcrop before we leave it behind forever.

We are retracing our steps, picking our way slowly back down from the pediment and the dangerous gator rocks which would have eaten our wheels!

We successfully drove further down off of the “Greenheugh pediment” as we head toward smoother driving pathways downhill.

There was good news when we came in for planning today – our remote mast recovery and all our other activities completed successfully, including the drive.

It has been a frustrating week for the Curiosity science and engineering teams.

Curiosity’s stationary week on Mars continued because we weren’t able to uplink Wednesday’s plan.

The rover engineers better understand the minor issue that occurred after our weekend activities.

Unfortunately, our weekend drive stalled, so this morning we found ourselves still at Friday’s workspace.

I learned a new word today: vug. Vugs are small cavities or pits on a rock surface and the rock in our workspace today was noticeably “vuggy.”

No, Silly Place hasn’t become a new place name, but I totally agree with Ryan, who was yesterday’s blogger, that this is not our usual terrain.

The original plan for today was to do a short drive to get within reach of some interesting new rocks.

Curiosity is investigating the different surface expressions of the Greenheugh pediment, and the weekend drive put the rover right next to some “gator-back terrain.”

After a ~15 meter drive to the west along the top of the Greenheugh Pediment, Curiosity is now positioned at an interesting textural transition within the pediment’s surface units.

Our Monday drive was successful, and we are now fully surrounded by the rocks that cap the Greenheugh pediment. From here we can see hundreds of ventifacts – a term that describes rocks which have...

Over the weekend, we completed the planned drive with a relatively easy (by “Greenheugh Pediment" standards) traverse in the pediment.

Due to an issue with the Sol 3410 and 3411 plans, parts of the Sol 3410 plan didn’t execute and the planned drive did not occur. But the Sol 3409 contact science activities completed successfully,...

After significant churn in Monday’s planning, today turned out to be a single sol’s worth of untargeted science.

We are continuing to slowly move through this very challenging terrain – over the weekend we made it about 4 meters before the drive stopped when the rover sensed more difficulty.

Curiosity is currently attempting a climb onto the pediment, carefully navigating rocks and sand. Our drivers are doing a great job planning but the terrain sometimes has other ideas.

The terrain continues to challenge us as we make our way up onto the Greenheugh pediment.

Curiosity has been picking her way through sand, sharp boulders and ridges to find a way up onto the Greenheugh pediment.

The drive on Sol 3397 went well and gave us some good perspective on the road ahead, as seen in the above Navcam image.

If all goes according to plan, the rover’s drive on sol 3397 will position us at the edge of the rocks that cap Greenheugh Pediment.

Today's plan involves getting one of the last looks at the rocks right below the Greenheugh Pediment, some observations at the contact between them, and some higher up on Gediz-Vallis Ridge.

MSL planning was met with beautiful images of our path ahead, like this one.

Curiosity is advancing westward through a largely boulder-strewn channel that is leading us toward the Greenheugh Pediment.

Our Curious robotic explorer is spending another Valentine's Day in faraway Gale crater, Mars. For the first time since 2019, Curiosity has a NASA-built MRV (Martian Rover Valentine)!

In this weekend two-sol plan (Sunday is a soliday!), we continue making progress towards the “Greenheugh Pediment” and will hopefully be almost on top of the pediment after the weekend drive.

We are continuing our traverse towards the "Greenheugh pediment."

After our adventures further uphill, Curiosity is backing down hill to get to the start of the path she will take up to the "Greenheugh Pediment."

We’ll be checking off the last item on our “Prow vicinity investigation” to-do list today with MAHLI and APXS observations on two bedrock targets named “Aji” and “Erico,” as well as ChemCam observa...

The above image is a MAHLI image of a small part of the Toron block in front of the rover. Take a moment to marvel at all the details.

In our weekend drive we aimed to get up close to the “Toron” block, which is a “float rock” or out of place chunk of bedrock in the workspace.

We continue to characterize “The Prow,” which stands proud above nearby flat lying dust coated bedrock.

In the last blog my colleague Lucy expressed excited hope for today’s planning of close-up imagery of the rocks we tried to approach at ‘The Prow.’

The weekend plan included a short drive (or bump) to get us closer to one of the interesting, more resistant ledges that are exposed in this area (“The Prow”), as Curiosity continues her climb up M...

On Wednesday we collected our first MAHLI images of the outcrops we’ve been studying the last few sols, and then drove back to the Prow to give us another chance to investigate the fascinating sedi...

After a few sols of challenges that prevented us from getting close-up MAHLI imaging of this dark outcrop in front of us, today we were finally able to plan the contact science that we were hoping ...

Our initial plan today was to conduct a MAHLI “dog’s eye” imaging sequence on the beautiful Panari outcrop that we are parked before.

We continue to document rocks similar to what we saw at "The Prow," a dark appearing rock outcrop with amazing sedimentary structures and details.

The "bump" planned on Sol 3354 to move the rover closer to "The Prow" outcrop was successful, placing the front wheels very close to the base of the outcrop.

Today Curiosity is doing a little bit of everything: some contact science, some targeted science, and a little driving.

On the second sol of the weekend plan, Curiosity took an unexpected break, stopping arm motion on the way to deploying MAHLI to image the wheels for their regular check up.

We are back into our planning routine after the Christmas break. In fact, today was the third plan in the new year, and the third plan that Curiosity executes within the Roraima quadrant my colleag...

Another successful drive on Mars resulted in a dusty bedrock workspace with nodules and small raised ridges in front of the rover. Curiosity also has a view towards larger scale, dark, resistant ri...

Tosol, Curiosity woke up in a new mapping quadrant, Roraima. The Roraima quadrant is named after the northern-most state of Brazil and Mount Roraima, which is the highest peak in the Pakaraima moun...