Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

This image was taken by Navcam: Left B onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 1151, November 1, 2015
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1152 with the robot focused on analyzing its new surroundings after a drive of some 105 feet (32 meters).

That drive on Sol 1148 last week put the rover “in range of some interesting rocks,” reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Anderson is a member of the ChemCam team on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

The recent plan for Sol 1150 called for use of Curiosity’s Mastcam to take an 8×4 mosaic of some interesting layered rocks, Anderson explains. That was to be followed by ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the targets “Dunkirk” and “Duperow”.

After the remote sensing is done, Anderson adds, on tap are three Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurements to be made, checking the abundance of chemical elements in rocks and soils of targets “Exshaw”, “Ellis Canyon”, and “Ennis”.

This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1151 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (November, 02, 2015).
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. From Sol 1148 to Sol 1151, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 25.74 feet (7.85 meters).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

On Sol 1151, the rover’s Mastcam is slated to take an 18×2 mosaic of the “Carlile” area and a 9×2 mosaic of the “East Glacier” target.

This is to be followed by ChemCam observations of Ennis and Exshaw and the accompanying Mastcam documentation images. ChemCam fires a laser and analyze the elemental composition of vaporized materials from Martian rocks and soils.

In the afternoon on Sol 1151, the plan called for a short drive to the southeast which should provide data to allow a longer drive in the next plan.

Finally, on Sol 1152, the plan is to do Navcam, Mastcam, and ChemCam atmospheric observations, plus some ChemCam focus tests, Anderson notes.

Planned Curiosity activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.