Sols 1422-1424: It’s my party and I’ll drill if I want to…

5 August 2016

Sol 1420 Mastcam mini Marimba drill hole

Sol 1420 Mastcam drill bit

 

Happy birthday Curiosity!  As we celebrate four Earth years of operations on Mars, Curiosity will be busy collecting another drill sample.  In honor of her birthday, check out all of the great science that we’ve accomplished in the last year in this video.

Curiosity’s birthday party on Mars kicks off with another attempt to drill the “Marimba” mudstone target.  While this target might be harder than previous rocks that we’ve drilled, we’re optimistic that the drill will complete successfully.  I was the GSTL again today, and it was a fairly straightforward planning day. The first sol is focused on drilling and imaging the drill hole and tailings.  On the second sol we’ll acquire ChemCam RMI images of the drill hole so we can target it with ChemCam LIBS on Monday.  We’re also planning a Mastcam stereo image of the location that we’ll dump the pre-sieved material.  In the afternoon we’ll transfer the drill sample, sieve it, and drop off a portion to CheMin.  Then we’ll let CheMin analyze it overnight.  On the third sol we have a science block devoted to Mastcam multispectral imaging of the drill hole and tailings, along with a ChemCam automated targeting test, and Navcam atmospheric monitoring.  Later in the day we’ll acquire a few Mastcam images as part of a change detection activity.  

Sounds like a fun-filled weekend for our four-year-old rover.  Happy birthday Curiosity.  Have your mudstone and eat it too.

By Lauren Edgar

--Lauren is a Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the MSL science team.

 

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.

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