Sols 2061-2062: Time to feed CheMin
23 May 2018After successfully drilling the “Duluth” target on Sol 2057 (as seen in the above Mastcam image), the science team is eager to find out what it’s made of. As SOWG Chair today, it was exciting to plan the drop-off of material to CheMin and overnight CheMin analysis. … Read More
Sol 2063-2066: Sample drop-off testing
25 May 2018Some of the Duluth drill sample was dropped into CheMin on Sol 2061, but not enough for a proper mineralogical analysis. So the top priority for today's plan is to again test the new drop-off procedure. Since the drill feed mechanism became unreliable over a year ago, drill samples can no… Read More
Sols 2049-2051: Onward and northward
11 May 2018Curiosity is currently investigating the Blunts Point member of the Murray formation, and searching for a suitable location to drill in the near future. I was the SOWG Chair today, and we put together a busy weekend plan focused on wrapping up contact science at our current location and… Read More
Sol 2048: Successful Bump
10 May 2018Today is the third and final day that I'm serving as SOWG Chair this week at JPL, and I was happy to see that the bump we originally planned for Sol 2046 completed successfully on Sol 2047, placing the rover in a good position for contact science on a couple of bright blocks in front of the… Read More
Create High Quality DTMs
8 May 2018A digital terrain model (DTM) is a digital representation of the elevation of a planetary surface. Members of the Astrogeology Team produce DTMs of different bodies in the solar system to address questions about how landscapes formed or changed over time, and to identify safe landing sites for… Read More
InSight Mars Lander to Launch on May 5
4 May 2018NASA’s InSight Mars Lander is scheduled to launch on May 5 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and expected to land on Mars, Nov. 26, north of the Martian equator. In just five months, InSight, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will… Read More
Press Release: CaSSIS Returns First Images from Primary Science Orbit
26 April 2018Image credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS. Koralev crater (165.9 E, 73.3 N) at 5.08 m/px with a ground-track velocity of 2.90 km/s. The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) flown onboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft, on 14 March 2016, sent out… Read More
Sols 2022-2024: Waternish extravaganza
13 April 2018The Sol 2020 drive completed successfully, placing the vehicle in a good position for contact science on the Waternish conglomerate. To sample the diversity of clasts in Waternish, the Sol 2022 plan includes brushing two spots, a 5-point APXS raster, and lots of MAHLI imaging. But… Read More
Sols 2020-2021: Leaving Bressay
11 April 2018The top science priority for this plan is to acquire all of the data needed to adequately characterize the rocks at the current location before driving away. So the GEO Science Theme Group discussed the priorities of various proposed observations, including a Right Mastcam mosaic of… Read More
Sol 2019: The workspace that just keeps giving
10 April 2018For the past few sols Curiosity has been exploring a diverse assemblage of cobbles and boulders on Vera Rubin Ridge, trying to understand how this blocky deposit came to be, and what the variety of rock types can tell us about geologic processes in Gale crater. We’ve been really excited… Read More
