MISSION UPDATES | April 29, 2021

Sols 3103-3104: Adieu, 'Bardou!'

Written by Ryan Anderson, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Part of the Curiosity is visible in this image of Mars

This image was taken by Right Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3102. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

The sol 3103-3104 plan marks the end of our campaign at “Bardou.” We’ll start off with Navcam and Mastcam atmospheric dust measurements, followed by several Mastcam stereo mosaics. The first will look for any changes in the target “Chavangnac.” Next we have a big 8x7 frame mosaic toward the southwest, followed by a 5x1 frame mosaic reshooting some of the cliff edge areas that were out of focus in a previous mosaic. We wrap up the morning of Sol 3103 with a ChemCam passive observation of the target “Tour Blanche,” a freshly broken rock surface.

The afternoon of Sol 3103 is full of arm activities. MAHLI will first take a picture of the Bardou dump pile, and then, like any tourist at a scenic vista, we will take a selfie! Once the selfie is done, Mastcam will take a series of pictures of the sampling system on the arm. Later in the evening, MAHLI will take a look at the CheMin inlet to make sure no sample material got stuck there. Finally, we’ll place APXS on the drill tailings for an overnight measurement.

On Sol 3104, MAHLI will take a picture of the APXS location, and then Mastcam will take a few additional frames of the panorama to the southwest, with the arm out of the way. Mastcam will also take a multispectral look at the Bardou dump pile.

With our final observations finished, we will bid “adieu” to Bardou and drive away. We’ll collect our standard post drive imaging, including clast survey with Mastcam and MARDI, and an extra “upper tier” Navcam subframe to help with targeting on Sol 3105.