Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Navcam Left B photo taken on Sol 2054, May 17, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2055 science duties. Red Planet researchers are getting ready for re-starting drill activities on Mars. The drill target is “Duluth.”

Drill sequence

Reports Roger Wiens, a geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Curiosity rover is commencing its drill sequence with a full suite of contact science characterizations. It will start with a touch of the target by the arm just off to the side of the planned drill site, documented earlier by Hazcam and Navcam.

Rover drill ready for action. Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2053, May 16, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Then an Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) observation will be performed, followed by Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observations of the Duluth target at 25 centimeters.

Up close on Duluth

“After that there will be a pre-load drill test,” Wiens notes, “which will be documented by the imagers. MAHLI will image the site at 35 centimeters along with imaging the location where the arm did its touch.”

The Dust Removal Tool (DRT) will brush the target, after which Mastcam will inspect the brush and the brushed surface, Wiens adds, and MAHLI will document the brushed target at 25, 5, and 1-2 centimeter distances. The 5 centimeter distance will support a stereo pair of images.

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2054, May 17, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Uplink commands

Also on the plan, APXS will be placed for an overnight observation of the target. Navcam and Hazcam will document most of the arm instrument positions over the course of the day.

The robot’s Mastcam is slated to take a Phobos transit video near sunset. The rover is set to use its Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) to monitor the background environment. If all goes well, the uplink team will soon begin work on the drilling commands, Wiens reports.

Name is apropos

The name Duluth was selected by geologists on the mission to recognize the Duluth Complex, one of the largest intrusions of gabbro on Earth, along the north shore of Lake Superior. Gabbro is a coarse-grained and usually dark-colored igneous rock.

Curiosity Navcam Left B photo taken on Sol 2054, May 17, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Duluth has one of the coolest climates in the U.S. due to its proximity to the world’s largest and one of the deepest freshwater lakes. The drill target ‘Duluth’ on Mars was also once near the shore of a large freshwater lake. Its climate is also relatively cool, so the name is apropos,” Wiens explains.

Drilling issues

According to JPL, engineers have been working for the past year to restore the rover’s full drilling capabilities, which were hampered in 2016 due to a mechanical problem. If all goes well, this weekend, Curiosity controllers will be adding percussion to a new technique already in use on Mars.

“This new technique is called Feed Extended Drilling, or FED. It lets Curiosity drill more like the way a person would at home, using the force of its robotic arm to push its drill bit forward as it spins. The new version of FED adds a hammering force to the drill bit,” notes a JPL statement.