Sols 2587-2589: Curiosity De-Butte

After the “butte-iful” location and view of sols 2585-2586, Curiosity descended back down from its perch on “Central butte” and skirted its steep side. The rover now has another butte in view—“Western butte”—in the accompanying image. Little by little, Curiosity is climbing higher, toward the edge of “Greenheugh pediment.”

The drive was 40 meters toward the southwest. At the new location, Curiosity will observe two targets, “Blawhorn” and “Gorgie,” with Mastcam, ChemCam, MAHLI, and APXS. Mastcam will also take images of “Yella Moor,” “Dalchork,” “Glen Lui,” and “Craigmillar,” as well as making a tau measurement and a crater rim extinction observation. MAHLI will take an image of the REMS UV sensor. Navcam will take dust-devil movies, suprahorizon movies, and a 360 sky survey. REMS, RAD, and DAN will also take data.

On the final day of the weekend plan, Curiosity will advance 20 meters, after which it will take Navcam images of its new surroundings. The rover will then compute a ChemCam target, using the AEGIS software, which will then direct the instrument to shoot a 3x3 raster on it. Finally, Mastcam will take a sunset tau observation, and the rover will radio home with a large bundle of new data.

Written by Roger Wiens, Geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory