Sols 2717-2719: The Poetry of Drilling on Mars

Curiosity’s drill campaigns are like poetry in fixed verse. A predefined set of activities has to occur in a sequence: first Curiosity must assess an outcrop for drilling, then drill and extract a sample, then process and characterize the sample, then deliver the sample to the CheMin instrument for analysis, then prepare the SAM instrument, then deliver the sample to SAM for analysis, and finally dump the sample on the ground.

All of this happens over a period of a couple weeks, and when we are planning the science observations for any given sol, we need to work within the scaffolding of the drill campaign sequence. But like poets crafting sonnets in iambic pentameter, we find freedom within the fixed structure to create something new.

Such is the case for today’s plan, covering sols 2717-2719: as Curiosity proceeds with the Edinburgh drill campaign, we use free blocks of time here and there to explore the landscape. The main structure of this three-sol plan includes a second analysis of the Edinburgh drill sample with CheMin and the preconditioning of the SAM instrument to prepare for an Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA) observation next week.

As for the other science observations:

Mastcam peers at the

Enigmatic outcrop with

A panorama.

ChemCam shoots three rocks:

“Albany,” “Alloway,” and

“Alexandria.”

Pediment surface

Revealed by ChemCam's Remote

Micro Imager.

Navcam movies seek

To capture swirls of dust that

Sweep the horizon.

Written by Melissa Rice, Planetary Geologist at Western Washington University