Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Front Hazcam Right A photo taken on Sol 2229, November 13, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2230 tasks.

Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, reports that the Mars machinery has been busy delving into the mineralogy of the latest drill hole sample.

Scientists are eager to get a Highfield drill sample to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite for analysis. To prepare for SAM, the plan called for a preconditioning activity to get the instrument ready to receive and analyze the sample.

Curiosity Mastcam Left photo taken on Sol 2227, November 11, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Inside the hole

While the SAM preconditioning activity takes up the bulk of Sol 2229’s power, Curiosity scientists were still able to plan about four hours’ worth of science activities, Kronyak adds.

The plan called for kicking off Sol 2229 with a hefty 2 hour-long science block. In it, four targets will be analyzed with the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam),  one down the inside of the Highfield drill hole, another along the drill tailings at the surface, a third on a nearby vein called “Fraser Castle,” and a fourth on bedrock target “Flanders Moss.”

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 2229, November 13, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

After that, Mastcam images of each ChemCam target are to be taken, to confirm where the laser shots hit, Kronyak explains.

Laser shots viewed in this Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 2229, November 13, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Change detection

“We’ll also image targets ‘Sand Loch’ and ‘Windyedge’ with Mastcam. This pair of images is important for change detection purposes, which we frequently perform when the rover is sitting in the same location for more than a few sols,” Kronyak points out. “For change detection, we take the same two images around the same time of day to help quantify how the martian wind is changing the landscape around us.”

The Sol 2229 plan also called for use of the robot’s Mastcam to acquire a few multispectral images – these images are taken using multiple camera filters.

“Experts on the science team use these images to help us interpret the composition of the local bedrock and surrounding areas,” Kronyak says. “We’ll take multispectral images of two targets to the side of the rover, ‘Loch Ba’ and ‘Slate Islands.’ To wrap up the science block, we’ll take some images with Navcam to look for dust devils. Later in the evening, we’ll perform our SAM preconditioning activity before going to sleep.”

Data products

Curiosity is to wake up on Sol 2230 for another loaded science block.

Curiosity Mastcam Right image acquired on Sol 2227, November 11, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“This time, we’ll use ChemCam to perform a passive calibration activity, followed by another Navcam dust devil suite and repeat Mastcam change detection images. We’ll then use Mastcam to make additional atmospheric observations in the form of tau and crater rim extinction measurements. Later on in the late afternoon, we’ll take a final pair of Mastcam change detection images and perform a sunset tau measurement,” Kronyak reports.

Curiosity Rear Hazcam Right A photo taken on Sol 2229, November 13, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“It was a busy day for the Mastcam team with all of our exciting change detection, multispectral imaging, and atmospheric measurements,” Kronyak concludes. “I’m very much looking forward to these data products, as well as updates later this week on the status of our Highfield drill sample!”