Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity rover image taken on Sol 1224 using Navcam Left B on January 15, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has entered Sol 1225.

The robot carried out a series of arm activities on Sols 1223-1224, “scuffing” up dune sand.

They all went well, explains Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona and a member of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) science team, “and we’re ready for even more contact science in the 3-sol weekend plan.”

Sharp-crested ripple

On the to do list and to kick things off, the rover’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) will analyze the composition of the wall of the scuff and will also document a sharp-crested ripple with the ChemCam Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI).

Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on January 14, 2016, Sol 1223.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As follow-on, Curiosity’s Mastcam is slated to document the ChemCam target and look for sand movement, Edgar adds.

Overnight, the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) will be used to measure the composition of the background undisturbed sand.

Fine and coarse-grained sand

Edgar explains that the weekend plan includes delivery of a fine-grained portion of sand to the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) for analysis.

On tap is dumping both the fine and coarse-grained portions of sand and analyze the fine-grained dump pile with Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and APXS.

Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo taken on January 14, 2016, Sol 1223.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This activity is to be followed by a Mastcam change-detection activity, followed by Navcam to monitor the deck of the rover to search for the movement of fines.

Overnight, CheMin will analyze the sample that was delivered the previous sol.

Given all that weekend work, Edgar concludes: “Phew! Sounds like a busy weekend for Curiosity!”