Curiosity’s science and engineering team members were back at it today after a holiday long weekend, while Curiosity itself was ready and waiting after its own soliday weekend. With the data from the holiday-soliday plan in hand, Curiosity’s team was faced with the decision whether or not to drill our current location, and, if so, where.
The Marker Band has proven elusive to drill. Curiosity has tried twice prior (e.g., sol 3676 and sol 3682-3683 blogs) and today’s workspace, in particular the bright material right above Curiosity’s iconic arm in the included image, was hopefully going to prove fruitful on this our third attempt.
However, once again, Mars had different ideas as drilling was deemed not possible here due to the nodular and bumpy nature of the workspace. We will instead execute a short drive, or bump, 3 m from our current location to a new location named “Guramoni,” where the conditions for drilling look more favourable.
Complementing the drive in today’s one-sol plan is a brush of the target “Tarra” followed by a quick touch-and-go APXS analysis as well as MAHLI and Mastcam images.
Further imaging and a ChemCam 5×1 LIBS raster on “Faro” round out the activities at our current location ahead of bumping to Guramoni. Finally, Curiosity wraps tosol’s planned activities by acquiring the requisite post-drive images, which shall arrive via a MAVEN relay in time for tomorrow’s team to assess the new workspace for drilling suitability.
Related Links
Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more
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In search of a new marker band drill site: Sols 3708-3709
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 12, 2023
We continue to characterize the Marker Band and the bedrock just below it, with the aim of understanding the origin of the Marker Band. For today’s two-sol plan, in an area below the Marker Band, we planned early morning APXS and MAHLI (Touch and Go) on the brushed target “Jenipapo,” similar to the flattest material in the accompanying Mastcam image.
Mastcam will acquire some multi-spectral imaging on the same target, and on the target “Pau Baru,” seen in the upper right of the Mastcam image. This … read more