Curiosity Left B Navigation-Camera image taken on Sol 2640, January 9, 2020
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2641 tasks.

“The Curiosity rover is still at the highest point it will reach on ‘Western Butte,’ having done a short bump to allow it to do contact science,” reports Roger Wiens, a geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Exploration to understand the composition, morphology, and ultimately, the origin of the capping unit of this butte. An image of this capping unit is shown above, taken by the Mastcam M100 camera on Sol 2635.

The rover team would like to understand the composition, morphology, and ultimately, the origin of the capping unit of this butte.

Too steep to drive

“The rocks look really interesting and unusual, but the butte is too steep to drive to the top to sample them. Fortunately, nature is kind to us, and somewhat like humans drop scraps to their pet dog under the table, nature has rolled some samples down to where the rover is,” Wiens points out.

Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro-Imaging (RMI) camera photo taken on Sol 2640, January 9, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

A recent planning session charted two action-packed sols.

“This plan is a big opportunity for contact science, as the rover is on stable ground after being for several days with a wheel perched on a rock,” Wiens explains.

Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2640, January 9, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Many targets

Targets “Buchan Haven” (overnight) and “Heinrich Waenke” will be observed by Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).

Dust Removal tool action as seen in this Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2640, January 9, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Dust Removal Tool (DRT) is to be used. The robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will take images of “Abernethy,” “Lochmond Hills,” “Buchan Haven,” and “Heinrich Waenke” (as close as one centimeter standoff distance).

 

Additionally, there are Mastcam images of “Hangingstone Hill” (a dark float rock, potentially from the capping unit), “Strathy Point” (a nodule), “White Rashes” (local bedrock), and a 15×8 “Glen Torridon Mount Sharp Ascent Route” mosaic with the M100 camera – (Right Eye (Mastcam-100).

Mastcam will also observe “Buchan Haven,” “Crianlarich Hills” (two images), and will take an image of the calibration target.

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 2640, January 9, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will do a combination of long-distance imaging and compositional analyses of targets near the rover, Wiens adds. The latter are “Hangingstone Hill,” “Strathy Point,” and “White Rashes.”

Long-distance mosaics

The long-distance mosaics are “Glen Docherty” and “LD Sulfate 2640a.” Navcam will take a dust-devil movie.

There is also a Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) active observation, a Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite scrubber activity, a Mastcam full tau, and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) get-data activities.

Wiens explains that the contact-science target “Heinrich Waenke” honors a late German scientist of that name (1928-2015) who was instrumental in the development of the APXS instrument, which was originally on NASA’s Sojourner rover, then was used on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program, and is now on Curiosity.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Road map

A new map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 2639 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (January 8, 2020).

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. From Sol 2633 to Sol 2639, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 0.37 feet (0.11 meters).

Since touching down in Bradbury Landing in August 2012, Curiosity has driven 13.47 miles (21.68 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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