Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2121, July 25, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2122 tasks.

Reports Rachel Kronyak, planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the science team has selected a new drill target, “Ailsa Craig,” and spent time triaging the target with the rover’s contact science instruments: the Dust Removal Tool, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2121, July 25, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Drill time

The current plan spells out two sols of Curiosity work: Sol 2122 is devoted to drilling the target Ailsa Craig.

“We’ll collect some complementary observations to document our drilling activities,” Kronyak adds, using the robot’s Mastcam, MAHLI, and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) cameras.

Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) shows prepping of new drill site. Photo produced on Sol 2121, July 25, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Recharging

“We’ll spend most of Sol 2123 recharging, but we also managed to squeeze in a few additional science observations,” Kronyak notes, including two ChemCam Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) analyses on nearby bedrock targets “Tolsta Head” and “Appin.”

Curiosity Mastcam Right image of dust busting brushes. Photo taken on Sol 2121, July 25, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“We’ll also use Mastcam to document two nearby crater features named “Taconite” and “Peterhead.” Finally, we’ll conduct some standard atmospheric tau and crater rim observations,” Kronyak concludes.