Curiosity Mission Updates

Curiosity finished up our investigation at Harlaw Rise on the weekend, and commenced our drive to an area we are (informally) calling the "Southern Outcrop," another of the ridge features that are ...

The Sol 2463 drive went as planned, leaving the rover in position to examine what appears to be a small dome in the sedimentary rocks.

Curiosity continued work on and around the gorgeous outcrop pictured above that was started on Sol 2461.

MAHLI was busy over the weekend. The data from Mars returned a trove of close-up images from the outcrop near the top of "Harlaw Rise," including the one shown here.

Curiosity will continue to investigate the rocky Harlaw region of the Glen Torridon formation on this holiday weekend.

The 4th of July is coming up - and so the team worked to keep the rover busy without keeping ourselves busy!

Curiosity is currently near the top of Harlaw Rise, having made a slight diversion from the southward drive through the clay-bearing unit to explore the nice exposures of rocks on this hill.

Curiosity has been a bit down lately-in elevation. After exploring the top of Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR) last year, the rover descended into a trough south of the ridge, dropping as much as 15 meters i...

Curiosity is parked in front of a ridge-forming outcrop known as "Harlaw" in the Glen Torridon region, and the team had some fun with naming targets today.

We are continuing our exploration of Glen Torridon (the clay-bearing unit) and the varied lithologies exposed in this area of Gale crater, including more rubbly bedrock that is mixed with sand, and...

Our drive on Sol 2447 stopped a bit short, placing us on an area that was mostly gravel.

Today's plan wrapped up our time at the Teal Ridge outcrop and we'll begin to drive toward the next waypoint in the clay-bearing unit of Gale Crater.

Curiosity is still perched on top of Teal Ridge to investigate a fascinating outcrop that caps the ridge. The above Navcam image shows the view off to the right of Curiosity.

Curiosity is still parked at a tilt of a little over 23˚ to examine the outcrop on top of "Teal Ridge."

Curiosity is still parked on Teal Ridge and is in the midst of an extended contact science campaign.

Curiosity's most recent transmission didn't come down as expected, so our plan today is to command the rover to retransmit its latest data.

We are investigating the ridges which are such a prominent feature in this section of Glen Torridon.

The planning day started with a change of plans. Due to a late-breaking change in relay pass scheduling, the decisional pass in today's plan was much earlier in the plan than we expected.

After yesterday's soliday for the rover operations team on Earth, we went back to work planning activities for Curiosity to complete on sol 2435 in the Glen Torridon area.

It's a good thing that Curiosity doesn't have any competition on the road as she drives fervently across undulating terrain towards a large geologic ridge of unknown origin (informally named "Waypo...

After yesterday's 47 meter drive, Curiosity awoke to a much different landscape than she had been analyzing over the past week.

The original plan for Sol 2429 involved a "touch-and-go" where the rover would have engaged in contact science (that's the "touch" portion) followed by a drive (the "go" portion), but through discu...

The main focus of today's plan was observations of the interbedded thick and thin layers we found at Woodland Bay before we drive away again, perhaps as early as the next plan.

Today we planned the weekend activities for Curiosity in Woodland Bay.

On Sol 2420 Curiosity drove ~61 m back to the "Woodland Bay" target, to analyze some interesting thick and thin laminations within the bedrock that we had observed previously, and to characterize c...

We've left multiple tracks across the cobblestone plain of Glen Torridon.

At the start of today's planning, the Geology theme group (GEO) had a major decision to make, whether to drill here at "Broad Cairn" or not.

After a short six meter drive to "Hallaig," the science team began the investigation of a new potential drill target named "Broad Cairn," a flat spot on a bright block in the clay-bearing unit.

Curiosity is investigating an area that is very high in potassium, and we're trying to characterize the distribution and the source of that potassium.

After spending the weekend playing in the sand of a nearby ripple field, Curiosity is back on the move, searching for our next drill target.

Curiosity is continuing the investigations at "Rigg."

The sol 2408 plan ended with the rover using its front wheel to dig a small trench in a ripple at the ripple field named "Rigg."

Now that we're back on the road following our drill campaign at Kilmarie, Curiosity is planning a quick "touch-and-go" activity today to characterize the local bedrock.

We're driving today! …but only about three meters.

Today we developed a 3 sol plan geared towards wrapping up activities at the "Kilmarie" drill site.

We got the go ahead at the start of planning to proceed with dumping the Kilmarie drill fines from the drill bit assembly.

Mars is steadily moving toward the cloudiest time of year at low latitudes, which occurs from about southern mid fall through mid winter.

The first round of SAM experiments was successful, so in the weekend plan we get to move forward with the GCMS (Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer) experiment.

The drop off of "Kilmarie" drill sample to SAM on Sol 2293 appeared to be successful, but we will not get the full results of the SAM analysis until later today.

Today's main activities use the "laboratory" instruments SAM and CheMin inside of Curiosity to analyze some of the powder from the Kilmarie drill hole.

We started planning in eager anticipation of the preliminary results from our downlink and whether the CheMin X-ray diffraction spectrometer received enough sample of the "Kilmarie" drill sample to...

In the plan today, the top priority was to drop off some sample from the Kilmarie drill hole to the CheMin instrument in order to begin the process of obtaining quantitative mineralogy.

The drilling planned for last weekend was successful, so the top priority for Sol 2386 is to drop portions of the Kilmarie sample onto a closed SAM inlet cover and take Mastcam images after each dr...

Yestersol's drill pre-load test was successful, so today we are go for a drill attempt at "Kilmarie!"

Some days just give me goose bumps. First, looking at yesterday's plan I realized that we did something really unusual overnight: Wrap up the drill activity on one site and start the drill activiti...

Curiosity is finishing up at "Aberlady" and ready to move on to our next drill target. We are preparing to drill a second hole in the clay bearing unit.

Yesterday's discussions with the science team focused on determining which target in the vicinity of "Aberlady" will become the focus of the next drill campaign: target 2, or target 3 (pictured in ...

With our time at Aberlady coming to a close, the search for our next drill target is in full swing. On Friday, the team discussed two different "bump" options that are near our current workspace an...

We are continuing the sequence of drill activities at Aberlady.

Today we received the initial results from CheMin's analysis of the "Aberlady" drill sample, and they look great!

This week's drill activities have been very power-intensive for Curiosity. So we'll spend today, Sol 2374, catching up on some remote science observations while waiting for data from yesterday's Ch...

After looking at our exciting new drill hole, "Aberlady," a few interesting observations were made: the drilled block lifted up a centimeter or two as the drill was retracted, there might be some e...

Our drill attempt at target "Aberlady" this weekend was a success! In today's plan we are continuing our investigation of Aberlady and the surrounding areas and preparing to deliver our drilled sam...

We are go for full drill! Today's plan will see Curiosity execute the final preparatory steps and then drill at our "Aberlady" bedrock target.

Today marks the conclusion of the MSL Science Team Meeting currently taking place at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.

Our short drive on Monday was successful, bringing two candidate drill targets into closer, clearer view.

One of the primary goals of the Curiosity mission, to determine the composition of a region which appears to be rich in clays (informally known as "Glen Torridon") is getting closer to being achieved.

Curiosity is getting close to the area in which we next want to drill. We are possibly as close as 2-3 drives (including today's) away from our next drill target!

We are continuing to find interesting new things in Glen Torridon. One of my favorite new images was taken this weekend (Mars sol 2356) on target "Stonebriggs."

At the start of Sol 2359, Curiosity found herself parked in front of some layered bedrock outcrops, a rarity in the rubbly landscapes that we've explored so far in the clay-bearing unit.

As Curiosity makes her way to the site where the science team would like to drill next, there is no shortage of observations to make of the many different lithologies of the clay-bearing unit.

Today was a fun, busy day to plan. Curiosity finally made the drive to a rock called "Muir of Ord," which has a cracked surface.

The Curiosity Operations team planned a 3-sol plan today, with lots of activities for both the Environmental (ENV) and Geology (GEO) theme groups.

Curiosity is back to work after another hiatus due to a computer reset.

In the current plan, we start with a dust devil survey to look for them while they are still in season. This is followed by a ChemCam investigation "Schiehallion" and an RMI mosaic on "Motherwell."...

Today we planned Sol 2338 chock full of science activities to finish up our observations at the "Midland Valley" outcrop. We'll primarily use our Mastcam and ChemCam instruments to take a closer lo...

Curiosity returned to science planning today after a two week hiatus because of a technical issue. Our most recent science plan, described in the blog for Sols 2320-2323, included a drive towards a...

Today was a very busy planning day for the Curiosity operations team. We planned a 3-sol plan, with contact science, imaging, environmental monitoring and a drive.

Similar to its namesake in Scotland, the Glen Torridon area on Mars affords us stunning vistas, but in our case, of the relatively low-lying clay bearing (from orbit) unit flanked to the north by t...

Curiosity is driving across the clay-bearing unit, which is still a very new terrain with many details yet to be understood.

Curiosity is cruising through the clay-bearing unit on some compacted clast-rich soil.

The accompanying image shows the target "Brent" in the lower right corner; it was analyzed with ChemCam and APXS, and imaged with MAHLI over the weekend.

Curiosity successfully completed her drive yesterday and is currently parked on top of one of the ridges ("Knockfarril Hill") in the clay-bearing unit.

In today's plan, Curiosity is venturing further into the clay unit territory.

Today's plan found Curiosity solidly in new territory and the view couldn't be more different than the patchy bedrock of the Vera Rubin Ridge.

This weekend's plan started off on Sol 2301 with some Mastcam atmospheric observations, followed by ChemCam analysis of "Loch Ness" and "Loch Skeen," examples of brown and gray bedrock.

Curiosity is on the brink of descending down off the Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR) onto the clay-bearing unit.

Curiosity is continuing the first phase of its journey to the "clay-bearing unit," the low elevation portion in the middle distance of this Navcam image with a series of "touch-and-go" driving sols.

Curiosity has moved for the first time since December 13, 2018. More importantly, Curiosity is moving to a new geological unit that we have so far called the "Clay-Bearing Unit".

Sometimes the best laid plans of rovers go astray. After wrapping up at the Rock Hall drill site yesterday, the plan was for Curiosity to start driving towards the clay-bearing unit, starting with ...

It has been a productive stay at the "Rock Hall" drill site.

Today was our last day at "Rock Hall," so it was our final chance to get every last bit of science at this location. We had a 2.5 hour science block filled with Mastcam change detection imaging of ...

Today we planned a single sol of activities, Sol 2291. As we begin to wrap up our activities at the Rock Hall drill site, Sol 2291 is chock full of science observations. We'll begin the sol with an...

We will soon be leaving the Rock Hall area, thus this one last look at the drill site from a hazard camera perspective. Seeing those holes always is special, even for #19!

Our onboard instruments SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) and CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) have come to the end of their investigation of the Rock Hall target, likely to be our last drill location...

Today was a very smooth planning day on Mars, with the first scheduled science block in the plan being entirely filled by various spectroscopic ChemCam observations. The ChemCam instrument has the ...

Today we are continuing the drill campaign at our red Jura target "Rock Hall." The focus of this weekend's plan is the dropoff of the Rock Hall sample to the SAM instrument, which will occur on Sol...

The holiday planning completed successfully and included 10 sols of five-hour-long morning meteorological observations by REMS, during the period when more complex activities were precluded.