Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B photo acquired on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3441 tasks.

“We are retracing our steps, picking our way slowly back down from the pediment and the dangerous gator rocks which would have eaten our wheels!,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

There have been so many times across the almost ten years of our mission in Gale [crater] that, in order to keep the forward momentum going, we have needed to move on from sites, leaving our geologists sighing at the wonderful rocks behind us,”  O’Connell-Cooper adds. “Our images and compositional analyses usually downlink to Earth after we have left an area, and so we often wish for a ‘go-back’ to zoom in on details that we only noticed in images or to get more compositional data on things that were unexpectedly intriguing.”

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Golden opportunity

O’Connell-Cooper explains that, although it is disappointing to be leaving the pediment (for now at least!), this does give researchers a golden opportunity to revisit outcrops that we passed on our drive up to the pediment, back in early March.

“We have a long wish list for this area, but Mastcam acquired some incredible imagery on the drive up, which we are using to pinpoint the best outcrops in this area,” O’Connell-Cooper notes.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Last Wednesday, the rover arrived at one of these outcrops that exhibits a somewhat chaotic appearance and a jumble of veins and raised resistant ridges.

Wheel placements

Awkward wheel placements by the robot meant that scientists could not do any arm science, making use of the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), “so we had to bump back just a little to be safer. This bump actually gave us a gift – it broke up some rocks in the workspace so we can analyze fresh surfaces,” O’Connell-Cooper reports.

“Lodberrie” will be subjected to the full analytical suite of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam), Mastcam, APXS and MAHLI in the targets, whilst Mastcam will image two other targets “Denny” and “Saltwick Bay.

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Further images

APXS and MAHLI will analyze “Sneuga” on one of these raised ridges, and MAHLI will get images of the nearby target “Inchbonny.”

Mastcam will take further images of one of Wednesday’s targets (“Fort Charlotte”) on an area to the right of our workspace with abundant thin laminations but with few raised ridges.

Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

ChemCam will use Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to investigate the chemistry of the target “Lunna” in that same area.

Mastcam will also acquire even more images of the “Feorachas” outcrop, the intended end of drive destination for a recently scripted plan.

O’Connell-Cooper concludes: “Looking forward to seeing Monday’s workspace!”