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.
Our weekend plan brought us to a block of coherent rock, a treat after spending many workspaces in more broken up and rubbly areas. The Geology (GEO) theme group uplinked lots of contact science here on Monday, so we are ready to leave and drive on to the next coherent block we have identified in the distance, a target known as "Midland Valley." Before leaving however, we planned contact science on "Ladder Hills," a beautiful example of laminated bedrock. APXS will be used to determine the chemistry, to compare it to our other targets in this workspace "Gannet" and "Curlew." MAHLI will take images of the laminations within Ladder Hills from two different angles - straight downwards onto the rock surface (the spot where APXS will also analyze), and from an oblique angle. ChemCam will acquire active LIBS (laser) analysis of Ladder Hills, in addition to analysis of "Fyvie," a large pebble for comparison with bedrock targets.
The plan features lots of Mastcam imagery. Both Fyvie and the post-drive AEGIS target will be imaged, in support of ChemCam science activities. Two mosaics will focus on the laminations in the workspace, in the targets Ladder Hills, "Ladyburn" and "Loch Gelly." Multispectral documentation will be taken of the Curlew target, which was brushed in Monday's plan. There is a mosaic of two linear ridges in the distance ("Gilles Hill").
Mid-way to our next stop at Midland Valley, we will stop at a small ripple field. Using Mastcam, we will image the undisturbed sand, before scuffing using the right wheel, back away a little, and then take another Mastcam image of the disturbed sand. These images will be used to further characterize the physical properties of the sand in this area. Then our drive resumes, hopefully ending on bedrock for our upcoming weekend plan. Following the drive, APXS will do overnight measurements of argon in the atmosphere, as part of a long range experiment looking at changes in argon abundances and seasonal variations.
In parallel to the very full GEO plan, the Environmental (ENV) theme group also has a very full plan. The main ENV activity is a ChemCam Passive Sky observation, which lets us measure the column abundance of water vapor, oxygen, water ice and dust in the atmosphere, and also gives us some idea of dust and water ice particle sizes. This is particularly interesting as we just had some regional dust storm activity on Mars, so there's still quite a lot of dust in the atmosphere above the rover. For this reason, we're also very interested in the two Mastcam atmospheric opacity measurements in this plan, which will tell us how much dust is still up there; recently, opacities have been trending down. ENV planned some Navcam movies, as part of an ongoing campaign to examine martian clouds, their properties and abundances. The "zenith" movie looks directly upwards to look at clouds and their direction, whilst the "suprahorizon" movie is targeted in a more horizontal direction, looking at clouds and variations in optical depth in the atmosphere above the north rim of the crater. ENV also planned Navcam and Mastcam "dust devil" movies and surveys, which measure the number, location, and characteristics of dust-filled convective vortices, which in turn tells us about surface heating, convection, and winds near the surface. These observations are targeted lower than the suprahorizon movies, to search for dust devils across the crater floor on the slopes of Mount Sharp. Excitingly, this plan sees the very first use of Mastcam to take a dust devil movie, which will give colour images and better resolution (although over a smaller region) than Navcam. Finally, there were also standard RAD, REMS and DAN activities.
About this Blog
These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Contributors
Sterling Algermissen
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Atmospheric Scientist; Texas A&M University; College Station, TX
Kristen Bennett
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Fred Calef
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Brittney Cooper
Atmospheric Scientist; York University; Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sean Czarnecki
Planetary Geologist; Arizona State University; Tempe, AZ
Lauren Edgar
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Christopher Edwards
Planetary Geologist; Northern Arizona University; Flagstaff, AZ
Abigail Fraeman
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Scott Guzewich
Atmospheric Scientist; NASA/GSFC; Greenbelt, MD
Samantha Gwizd
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Ken Herkenhoff
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Rachel Kronyak
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Sarah Lamm
Planetary Geologist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Michelle Minitti
Planetary Geologist; Framework; Silver Spring, MD
Claire Newman
Atmospheric Scientist, Aeolis Research; Pasadena, CA
Catherine O’Connell
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Melissa Rice
Planetary Geologist; Western Washington University; Bellingham, WA
Mark Salvatore
Planetary Geologist; University of Michigan; Dearborn, MI
Susanne Schwenzer
Planetary Geologist; The Open University; Milton Keynes, U.K.
Ashley Stroupe
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Dawn Sumner
Planetary Geologist; University of California Davis; Davis, CA
Vivian Sun
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Lucy Thompson
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Ashwin Vasavada
MSL Project Scientist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Roger Wiens
Geochemist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Tools on the Curiosity Rover
The Curiosity rover has tools to study clues about past and present environmental conditions on Mars, including whether conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life. The rover carries:
The 3-sol weekend plan starts with targeted remote science (ChemCam and Mastcam observations), then completion of the thorough wheel imaging campaign .
The Sol 488 plan includes ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the Cumberland drill sample that was dumped in front of the rover, completing the campaign on the dump pile.
I'm on my way home from the ChemCam team meeting, so again not involved in MSL tactical operations, but saw that the Sol 487 plan includes dumping the last of the Cumberland drill sample and MAHLI imaging of the dump pile.
I'm uplink lead for the Opportunity Microscopic Imager and engineering cameras (Hazcams and Navcams) today, so have not been able to follow MSL planning as closely as usual.
The drive planned for last weekend went well, so another drive is planned for Sol 472, along with targeted remote science and MAHLI imaging of the rover wheels.
MSL launched from Florida two years ago today--I was pretty nervous that day, but the mission has obviously gone extremely well! Planning is restricted this week (results of the drive planned for Sol 465 will not arrive until tonight), so we are planning
MSL science planning has resumed! Today we are planning 3 sols, with the focus on dropping more of the drill sample into 4 of SAM's cups, for future analysis.
I was scheduled as MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, but there was nothing to do because all science planning is on hold while the power issue is being investigated.
Planning started at 6:30 this morning to allow enough time to plan 3 sols before we have to send the command sequences to the rover by 19:00 this evening.
MSL planning is still restricted, so we won't get confirmation of the drive planned for Sol 431 in time for planning Sol 432, which is therefore an untargeted-remote-sensing sol.
The autonomous navigation software could not find a safe path toward the rover's goal on Sol 404, so ended up in a configuration that prevented uplink of the Sol 405 command sequences directly to the high-gain antenna from Earth.
The short drive to the next contact science location at Waypoint 1 was successful, so we planned a lot of MAHLI images and a couple ChemCam observations of the veins in front of the rover .
The MSL team is celebrating the first Earth year of operations on the surface of Mars, at JPL, on NASA TV , and at participating institutions around the world.
We were happy to see that the long drive planned for last weekend went well , but don't expect to drive so far every sol until more software capabilities are checked out and cleared for use.
MSL passed one kilometer total drive odometry during the Sol 335 drive! Hopefully the two kilometer mark will be passed much more quickly, as we are halfway through the nominal mission of one Mars year (669 sols).
We decided to spend a bit more time investigating the "Shaler" outcrop using the arm instruments and ChemCam before starting the long drive to Aeolis Mons or "Mt.
"Contact science," including APXS and MAHLI close-up observations of a couple of rocks at the "Shaler" outcrop, are being planned for Sols 322 and 323.
I'm not on shift in any tactical operations roles, but have been helping finish up important observations in the "Cumberland" area before we drive away next week.
I'm not scheduled in any tactical operations roles this week, but havebeen calling into planning meetings for both MSL (Curiosity) and MER(Opportunity).
At long last, the MSL team has resumed planning science observations!I was MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead on Monday, and although we didn't planany activities with those cameras, it was good to be involved intactical operations again.
I'm scheduled as MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead again today, but there's nothing for me to do because the engineers at JPL are still working torecover from recent software anomalies.
I'm scheduled to serve as SOWG Chair today and tomorrow, but we won't be able to plan any new science observations because the recovery from the Sol 200 anomaly is not yet complete.
After taking a break from tactical operations for an MSL science team meeting (and a bit of vacation) last week, I'm back on as SOWG chair for Sol 195 planning.
Planning is still "restricted," so we had an opportunity to acquire more ChemCam and imaging data on Sol 181 while waiting for confirmation that the Sol 180 "mini-drill" test completed successfully.
Because the "drill-on-rock checkout" activity did not complete successfully on Sol 174, the MSL team had to work extra hard to determine how best to recover from the anomaly.
As SOWG Chair again, I worked hard today to fit as many observations into the Sol 175 plan as possible while leaving enough energy in the batteries for Sol 176 activities.
We have arrived at John Klein , the location selected for the first use of the drill! There are multiple potential drill targets in front of the rover, which must be flat as well as scientifically interesting .
I was MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead again for Sol 153 planning, but there were no MAHLI or MARDI observations in the plan, so I focused instead on advance planning for Sol 154.
A short "bump" toward slightly younger rocks in front of the rover was planned for Sol 151, and no MAHLI observations were included so I had an easy day as PUL.
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