Curiosity Mars Rover: On the Move

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2450 science duties.

“We’re persevering with our exploration of Glen Torridon (the clay-bearing unit) and the numerous lithologies uncovered on this space of Gale crater, together with extra rubbly bedrock that’s blended with sand, and extra coherent bedrock uncovered each within the floor and capping outstanding ridges,” reviews Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist on the College of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Curiosity has continued the drive away from one in every of these ridges, Teal Ridge, in direction of one other low-lying lip and ridge of uncovered bedrock that Mars researchers check with as “Harlaw.”

Good place

A current drive by the robotic put the Mars equipment about 30 toes (9 meters) away from Harlaw and in a “good place” to get some context Mastcam mosaics of the world that can assist scientists interpret the outcomes of our deliberate closeup investigation of this space, Thompson notes.

 

Earlier than a deliberate drive in direction of Harlaw, “we are going to study the rubbly floor instantly in entrance of the rover,” Thompson provides, utilizing the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), the Mars Hand Lens Imager, Chemistry and Digicam (ChemCam) and rover’s Mastcam.

Rubbly bedrock

“We’ll get a brief morning APXS integration, closeup MAHLI photos and ChemCam on a goal “Tolsta,” ChemCam solely on a goal ‘Yell Sound’ and accompanying Mastcam imaging of the workspace to proceed monitoring the composition and texture of the rubbly bedrock as we traverse the Glen Torridon area,” Thompson reviews.

Environmental observations by Curiosity included customary background Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) actions to watch the every day martian climate, the Radiation Evaluation Detector (RAD) to watch the radiation surroundings and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive to check the abundance and distribution of subsurface hydrogen- and water-bearing supplies.

Optical depth

A Navcam mud satan survey and suprahorizon film are additionally deliberate. The suprahorizon film will search for clouds and the optical depth of the ambiance.

In addition to monitoring actions, because the APXS strategic planner for this week, Thompson helped choose the Tolsta goal and ready a weekly instrument replace for the science group.