Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3225, September 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3228 duties.

Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University, Milton Keynes, in the U.K., reports that the robot is surveying a spectacular landscape. “The higher we climb the more spectacular and rugged the scenery appears.”

Four-sol plan

A recent two-sol plan for sols 3226-3227 was not uplinked, so the rover had a two-sol break.

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3225, September 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“The next plan is a four-sol plan because of Monday being the Labor Day holiday in the US. As a consequence, the plan now has drill preparations,” Schwenzer adds, such as doing a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) raster, the Dust Removal Tool and Mastcam multispectral observation of the drill site on sol 3228, and getting Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) ready, too.

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3225, September 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Drill plan

“Curiosity will drill at “Maria Gordon” on sol 3229, followed by portion characterization, and Mastcam multispectral investigation and ChemCam passive spectral investigation of the drill tailings,” Schwenzer points out. “So, when we come back from our holiday here on Earth, we shall see images of drill hole #33 on Mars. Second time lucky!”

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3225, September 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

With a four-sol plan to come, there is a lot more to do for Curiosity.

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3225, September 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Frost investigation

“We are back in the season where frost events are likely. Therefore, a frost detection investigation on the target ‘Mangersta Sands’ is in the plan, whereby the target will be investigated twice, once very early in the morning and once during daytime for a comparison of the hydrogen, a proxy for water content at different times,” Schwenzer reports.

Curiosity’s Mastcam is taking two large mosaics to document the spectacular landscape – “because spectacular to look at is not just an aesthetic judgment, there is a lot of geology to see, too, with different layers, textures and structures,” Schwenzer says.

Last but not least, the rover will also make the standard atmospheric observations, Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) investigations.