Sol 1780: Five (Earth) Years on Mars

In Monday’s plan, sample was delivered to SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) for an EGA (evolved gas analysis) activity, which involved heating the sample to very high temperatures and measuring the gas...

Coming into planning today, we had to be mindful of power after the energy intensive delivery of the Maria Gordon drilled sample to SAM and the Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA) of that sample, currently ...

Curiosity is working her way through a busy drill campaign at the Maria Gordon location and keeping her eyes on the beautiful cliffs nearby.

One of our ChemCam LIBS targets in today’s plan is named "Chocolate Bloc."

Any morning where we get to plan Curiosity’s activities on Mars is a good morning, but mornings we find out we’ve successfully drilled are extra sweet.

Looking over the shoulder, well, over our UHF antenna, onto a spectacular landscape.

Tosol on Mars, the MSL team is commanding Curiosity to drill sample #33.

Our short drive over the weekend successfully landed us within half a meter of our desired parking elevation for our next attempt at drilling in Gale crater.

Recent workspaces have featured two types of textures – one smooth, one rougher with small nodules or grains apparent.

If all goes according to today’s plan, we should end up about 7 meters from our next drill location.

The Sol 3216 drive went well, placing the rover izn an area of bright bedrock partly covered by dark sand.

This weekend, Curiosity will be very busy. Today I was part of the Rover Planner team and got to plan our drive.

Since navigating around the Sands of Forvie and changing our drive direction from east to the southwest, Curiosity has traversed more than one kilometer as she continues to head uphill and make her...

Despite the similarities, Curiosity remains on Mars and not your neighborhood movie theater after the lights come on and you find spilled popcorn all over the floor.

We are continuing our traverse through an area of resistant buttes or mesas, and recent drives have been relatively short.

On Earth, there are superstitions that Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck.

Curiosity continues her climb up Mt. Sharp, navigating her way towards the southwest.

Our successful, ~30 m drive over this irregular terrain yesterday placed us back in the so-called “Torridon” quadrangle.

Curiosity is making good progress along the path to our next intended drill location, and making a lot of great observations along the way.

"We are safe on Mars!" … I for my part cannot believe that Curiosity landed 9 years ago now, on the 5th of August 2012 late at night for most of my colleagues in the US, but actually today, on the ...

Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada pointed out a great fact at the beginning of planning today: At around 4 o’clock in the afternoon on Sol 3199 (the first sol in the plan we are creating today), Cu...

We have recently done a full MAHLI wheel imaging, and the image I choose today is one of the wheels in full sunshine.

We are continuing our traverse towards Mount Sharp and are passing through an area of more resistant buttes or mesas, some of which can be seen in the image above, and the larger Rafael Navarro Mou...

Curiosity is continuing to climb through an area where orbital data show the layers of Mount Sharp are transitioning from clay-bearing to sulfate-bearing.

Our weekend drive completed successfully, landing us north of a ~15 m tall butte that we had imaged the east side of over the weekend.

The Sol 3185 drive went well, placing the rover near a low, linear ridge shown in the lower left part of the above image.

This image was taken by Mast Camera (Mastcam) of the APXS sensor head onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3183.

The science team is dealing with a pressing situation today – quite literally! In the MAHLI image above, you can see a flat, smooth region in middle of the Pontours dump pile, where it looks like s...

As with all 3-sol plans we prepare on Fridays, we packed today’s plan with activities to make sure that Curiosity has plenty to do over the weekend! Curiosity is wrapping up her most recent drill c...

‘We are expecting to hear from them at 11 am’ – well, that was said at 5 pm local time for me, serving as GeoSTL today.

Baseball starts its All Star Break today, but in the grand tradition of the doubleheader, the MSL team decided to plan two sols where only one was scheduled!

Late in planning Wednesday the data needed to confirm that it was safe to drop some of the latest drill sample into CheMin were received, so no changes to the Sol 3171-3172 plan were needed.

Despite not getting all the expected data down in our decisional pass this morning, we did receive enough information to confirm that we successfully drilled our 32nd hole on Mars, Pontours (see th...

On Sol 3165 Curiosity carried out a short bump to better position the rover for drilling.

On Sol 3165 Curiosity carried out a short bump to better position the rover for drilling. The bump went well and we were excited to dive straight into planning today.

In the previous plan, Curiosity “bumped” to a nearby location that was identified as a potentially good spot for our next drilling campaign.

We are packing it all in on sol 3163: contact science, targeted science, and a short bump to what we hope will be our next drill campaign location (in the direction of the attached image).

Today’s workspace sports a lot of sand, which of course will be a target for our investigations. But it also has interesting looking rocks, which seem very rubbly and structured. The image above sh...

The sol 3156 drive went well, leaving the rover on bedrock with lots of dark nodules.

Curiosity had another nice ~51 m drive over the weekend, making good progress towards the next intended drill location and taking in the view along the way.

In today’s 3-sol plan, we are doing a lot of pre-drive targeted science and a long drive. Today, I am a Rover Planner and helped to plan this long drive, which was an interesting challenge.

Curiosity drove another ~60 m in our last plan, so we were once again greeted with images from a brand-new location on Mars this morning.

Jumping back into work on Monday morning can be hard, and sometimes an extra cup of coffee is essential to kickstart the week.

“Not a place for the barefoot martians!” was the first thing Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada said this morning when he saw today’s new images.

Our 58 meter drive yesterday was successful, putting us in a new location with new targets to analyze!

Another successful long drive brought us to another wondrous workspace, filled with textures and structures the team could not wait to explore.

We opened our planning program this morning to find a fantastic new workspace – we could spend a week here and still have amazing targets to choose from!

Curiosity is roving again! That gave us the first new view and workspace in just as many weeks, and we were able to have “regular” planning today.

Our recent attempts to drive have been stymied by problems related to MAHLI and the remote sensing mast (RSM).

“Momento” is an order, in Latin, to remember. For myself, as we are entering this four sol planning cycle over the US Memorial Day weekend.

The Sol 3131 plan is focused on recovering from recent anomalies: Engineers need a few additional sols to study the previous hiccup with the remote sensing mast (RSM).

We started planning today hoping to see some new bedrock in our workspace, but unfortunately the weekend plan didn’t work out exactly as we had hoped.

Our nearly nine year old rover occasionally has a hiccup and needs to reset and try again.

First things first, we had a few stubborn technical devices on Mars and Earth to contend with today.

In contrast to the last time I contributed a blog, today was a smooth planning session. Our weekend science activities and drive executed flawlessly and the workspace was dominated by bedrock.

There is lots of bedrock in the arm workspace in front of the rover, and contact science targets were quickly selected this morning.

Today Curiosity is finishing up at a stop designed to investigate diagenetic features, such as veins and color variations within the bedrock.

Today the team was greeted by a new workspace that included “tiger striped” rocks and an intriguing two-toned vein.

Things not going to plan doesn’t have to mean a disaster - sometimes there is a silver lining to be found and today was one of those days.

We’re on the road again! Curiosity drove ~44 meters on sol 3109, so we’ve left our scenic view at “Bardou” behind in the rear-view mirror… er… rear Hazcam…

Following a few small hiccups with different rover activities recently, Curiosity has a fully packed plan today!

Curiosity started the week at her familiar “Bardou” drill location on top of "Mont Mercou,” her departure stymied once again by a stubborn MAHLI cover.

We’ll begin our three-sol weekend plan by acquiring a ChemCam LIBS observation on a bedrock target named “Jumilhac le Grand.”

The sol 3103-3104 plan marks the end of our campaign at "Bardou."

We’re finishing up our activities at the 'Bardou' drill hole today and in Wednesday’s plan.

SAM successfully analyzed the 'Bardou' drill sample delivered to the instrument over the weekend.

It is always fun when we begin a planning day and the pre-planned activities get changed.

Drilling is always exciting, and the image above shows our 31st drill hole, named ‘Bardou.’

We had a great morning on Curiosity planning today because we were greeted by an image of our newest drill hole, “Bardou!”

Congratulations to the Perseverance and Ingenuity teams on the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Curiosity is ready to begin the drilling campaign on the "Bardou" drill target on top of "Mont Mercou!"

The Sol 3088 drive went well, and there is lots of bedrock in the arm workspace.

Our mountain-climbing rover has bagged another “peak” and is currently taking in the view from the top of the ~6-meter tall "Mont Mercou" cliff.

Last week, Curiosity circled the base of "Mont Mercou," taking advantage of this rare opportunity to 3-D profile a large prominent outcrop.

Sol 3081 will be a busy one for Curiosity. The rover is still near the transition between the "Glasgow" member and the sulfate-bearing unit.

The Easter holiday, which was observed yesterday in the United States, is often celebrated with traditional Easter egg hunts.

Curiosity is continuing to make her way around "Mont Mercou" to capture as many angles as possible of the 7-meter tall sedimentary outcrop.

Curiosity is continuing her investigation of "Mont Mercou," the tall outcrop of bedded sedimentary rock seen in the attached image.

We are finishing up at the "Nontron" drill locale and moving onto the next stage of investigating the beautiful "Mont Mercou" outcrop.

Curiosity will be driving again this weekend after completing drilling activities at “Nontron,” but we won’t be going very far.

With a successful drill campaign at “Nontron” in the books, the team continued to wrap up drill hole observations.

It takes careful planning to manage the rover’s battery and power, much like we all manage our cell phone batteries and try to keep them charged. But we have to plan several sols ahead.

Curiosity is still parked in front of the magnificent "Mont Mercou" cliff face as we continue to work through analyses of the "Nontron drill site.

Two main activities will dominate the plan this weekend as we near the end of the “Nontron” drill campaign.

Geology photographers want to see all of the bumps, lines, divots and wrinkles, as those features tell the story of how a rock was formed and altered.

With the drill campaign well under way, we get to take in all the vistas of the magnificent landscape around us.

Humans minds don’t easily comprehend the vast eons of time that separate us from the places we explore in space with robots like Curiosity.

There is a lot to be looking out for at Curiosity’s current parking position.

Curiosity is ready to go ahead with the first drill of 2021!

In planning today, the team decided to drive to a drill location closer to the cliff face of "Mont Mercou."

Curiosity continues her climb up toward the lovely cliff of “Mont Mercou” and what could be the start of the sulfate-rich layers of “Mount Sharp.”

This two-sol plan includes arm, remote sensing and mobility activities on Sol 3047 and more remote sensing on Sol 3048.

The Sol 3044 drive brought MSL to an area mostly covered by dark sand, with very few exposed rocks in the arm workspace.

The science team is continuing to make detailed analyses of the regional bedrock to make sure that we understand these transitions from the ground as well.

It is truly hard to believe it has been over 8 years - more than 3000 sols - since Curiosity landed in Gale.

Curiosity is staying put in today's plan and feasting on some bonus science.

This past weekend, Curiosity celebrated the start of a new year on Mars.

It’s freezing cold right now here in Europe, with temperatures just below 32 F (0 °C), which sparked me to look at the weather report from Gale crater, provided by REMS, our weather station.

Curiosity has just crossed the contact between two rock types: the fractured intermediate unit and the rubbly sub-unit.

Curiosity is currently within the fractured intermediate unit and in the previous drive the rover reached a contact between two sub-units.

Today we’re doing another touch-and-go, fitting in a little bit of everything.

In the weekend plan for sols 3017-3019, Curiosity will attempt a novel experiment to witness the “triboelectric effect” for the first time on Mars.

Today’s title image shows how diverse the area is that Curiosity is currently travelling through, with a part of a wheel for scale.

Curiosity is continuing to make her way through the fractured intermediate unit toward the sulfate unit.

We began planning today with the good news that we received some of the previously expected data and could plan "targeted" observations on specific targets identified in the new images.

After each time Curiosity finishes a drive, the science team eagerly awaits the downlink of what is termed “post-drive imaging,” or PDI, to visualize our surroundings and to target areas of the sur...

Three thousand sols and never a dull moment! Today we planned Sols 2999-3000 and it was a real reminder of how complex and rewarding this mission can be.

As we were finishing up our measurements at the “Sands of Forvie,” we decided to give the sand one last good kick – er, scuff – on our way out.

The Sands of Forvie campaign continues on with further exploration of the ripples and sand disturbed by a previous wheel scuff.

We are in the midst of a mini-campaign to further examine eolian (wind erosion, transport and depositional) processes on Mars.

Here on Earth, people often use the start of a new year as an opportunity to adopt new resolutions for themselves.