Sols 1078-1079: Back to restricted planning

17 August 2015

I had an easy planning day as MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, because another drive is planned for Sol 1078 with only the usual post-drive MAHLI (stowed) and MARDI (twilight) imaging.  Planning is restricted again (Mars and Earth time are out of sync), so we are planning two sols. … Read More

Sols 1075-1077: Time for SAM!

14 August 2015

We had another successful drive on sol 1074, putting us in a good position for the weekend! The main activity for the weekend is using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument to analyze some of the recent drill sample that we collected. SAM activities will take up all of sol 1075. On sol 1076,… Read More

Sol 1074: Crazy Mountain

13 August 2015

The 47 meter drive on sol 1073 went exactly as expected, putting us in a good position for the sol 1074 plan. It’s a pretty simple plan today, with time for a single ChemCam observation of a target called “Crazy Mountain”. I got to pick the name for this target (one of my favorite… Read More

Sol 1073: Drive-Thru Geology

12 August 2015

The drive on sol 1072 was successful, with a total distance travelled of about 35 meters. For sol 1073, Mastcam will be very busy taking pictures to document the geology in our new location. We are planning a 31x1 mosaic of the outcrop in Marias Pass, plus a 13x3 mosaic of “Mt. Shields”… Read More

Sols 1071-1072: What we've got here is a failure to communicate

11 August 2015

Unfortunately over the weekend there was an outage at the Deep Space Network, which prevented the plan for the weekend from being sent to Curiosity. So, instead of a busy weekend, Curiosity was in “runout” mode, making routine environmental monitoring measurements and waiting patiently… Read More

Sols 1068-1070: Back at Missoula

7 August 2015

Curiosity had a successful drive of 19 m on Sol 1067, and we are currently back at Missoula for more targeted science.  The goal is to perform a detailed study of the Stimson-Pahrump contact, and to determine the relative timing of some of the veins that we’ve observed here. The… Read More

Sol 1067: Bumping to Missoula… sound familiar?

6 August 2015

With a familiar blog title, I report that in today’s plan we’re bumping towards the Missoula outcrop.  On Sol 1066 Curiosity drove ~ 25 m back toward Missoula, but we still have a little further to go.  However, the science team took advantage of our current position to… Read More

Sol 1066: Happy 3rd Anniversary on Mars!

5 August 2015

Tonight marks the third anniversary of Curiosity’s landing in Gale crater.  It’s been a great three years, full of a number of important science discoveries.  Check out this video and webpage for a summary of some of the top science results so far. To celebrate… Read More

Sol 1065: Last Call at Lion

4 August 2015

It’s been a great couple of weeks at the Lion outcrop, but it’s time to move on.  After a successful investigation that included observations by almost every science instrument, we’re getting ready to drive away tomorrow.  That means that today (and tomorrow before we… Read More

Sol 1064: Dump pre-sieve sample

3 August 2015

The activities planned for last weekend completed successfully, including sample dropoff to CheMin and analysis of the minerals present.  So the Sol 1064 plan includes dumping the portion of the drill sample that has not been sieved and Mastcam, ChemCam, MAHLI, and APXS observations of the… Read More