Curiosity Mars Rover: New Parking Spot

 

 

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has simply began Sol 2733 operations.

Following a drive away from the Edinburgh drill web site final Wednesday, Curiosity has a brand-new parking spot for this weekend’s science actions, experiences Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Sand ripples

“The drive put us proper in entrance of a pleasant patch of sand ripples,” Kronyak notes. “We’ll dedicate a number of of our weekend actions to investigating targets round this little patch of sand.”

The robotic had s a “soliday” this previous weekend, which happens each few weeks to permit the Earth and Mars schedules to sync again up. “Which means our weekend plan is simply two sols as an alternative of the three,” Kronyak provides.

Science block

On the primary sol of that weekend plan, Sol 2731, there was a hefty 2-hour science block throughout which Curiosity was slated to carry out a set of Chemistry and Digicam (ChemCam), Mastcam, and Navcam observations.

The plan known as to be used of the ChemCam laser to probe targets “The Borders,” “Dryhope,” and “Chalifornia.”

“The Borders and Chalifornia are bedrock targets, and, because the identify suggests, Dryhope is a soil goal,” Kronyak explains. The plan known as for utilizing the Mastcam to take documentation photos of the ChemCam targets in addition to an extra massive mosaic to doc the stratigraphy of the Greenheugh pediment because the rover continues to drive down the pediment.

To complete out the science block, Navcam and Mastcam had been to seek for mud devils and monitor the ambiance. Within the afternoon and in a single day, the robotic was scheduled to carry out contact science (together with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) devices) on the “Auld Reekie” soil goal.

 

 

 

 

Inspecting rover wheels

On the second sol, Sol 2732, the plan entailed Curiosity to get up very first thing within the morning to carry out some further atmospheric observations, together with Mastcam tau and crater rim extinction photos in addition to a Navcam line-of-sight picture and cloud-monitoring films.

After these observations, a collection of MAHLI photos of Curiosity’s wheels had been known as for, earlier than getting again on the highway to proceed the drive down off the Greenheugh pediment. Following that drive, the plan had the rover taking commonplace post-drive photos, Kronyak experiences.