Sol 3831: Awaiting SAM Results

Earth planning date: Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Curiosity is still hard at work analyzing results from the Ubajara drilled sample. Yesterday we delivered some of the sample to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument for an Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA), which is basically an activity where we bake the rock powder at very high temperatures (100s of degrees C) and simultaneously measure the compositions of the gasses that come off the rocks as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter. We planned to run the SAM EGA overnight in the sol 3830 plan, so we didn’t have the data of that experiment down in time for planning this morning to help us decide what we want to do next; our choices are either to do another kind of analysis of the sample with SAM, or wrap up this drill campaign and drive on. Today’s plan therefore turned into a “Wait for SAM” plan, where we planned some science activities for Curiosity to do while we recharge the battery and await data from the experiment to be returned to Earth.

Fortunately, there’s lots to do while we wait! Mastcam has been slowly collecting lots of beautiful and scientifically valuable high-resolution mosaics from this location, so today we will continue to add to the collection by adding coverage of some rocks in front of the rover. ChemCam has also been documenting some interesting dark nodules and veins on targets like Ilha Grande, Tacuma, and in Jardinopolis in the past weekend’s and yesterday’s plan. We’ll continue this characterization today with a ChemCam LIBS activity on another nearby dark vein, named “Sunsas.” On the environmental monitoring front, we’ll also look at the rim of Gale crater with Mastcam and Navcam to characterize how hazy it looks (it’s a very clear time of year right now, see above!), and also search for dust devils with Navcam.

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory