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Over the past week or so, Curiosity has experienced increasingly dusty conditions in Gale crater. Unlike her older cousin Opportunity on the other side of the planet, Curiosity is not solar powered and, therefore, doesn't suffer from the same power issues resulting from the darkening skies that Opportunity does. That allows Curiosity to play more of an active role in monitoring this dust storm from the ground and collecting important information to help scientists understand the evolution of such a weather phenomenon.
After an unexpectedly short drive on Sol 2086 due to some "slippery" ground conditions, we again had a very short drive in the Sol 2087 plan due to additional wheel slippage. In fact, Curiosity only recorded a drive of 17 millimeters, or about half an inch! Needless to say, the landscape today looks pretty similar to the landscape we saw yesterday...
The science team did a great job in taking advantage of this familiar landscape by planning several new measurements. ChemCam will use its LIBS capabilities to analyze targets named "Beaver Bay," "Moose Mountain," and "Breakwater," while Mastcam and Navcam will dedicate their efforts primarily towards documenting these ChemCam targets and making environmental observations. The plan is to then drive away from this location heading south back up the Vera Rubin Ridge. Following the drive, we will make some additional environmental measurements and acquire our standard post-drive observations in preparation for our next day of planning on Friday.