Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3331. Distance driven 16.65 miles/26.80 kilometers since landing in August 2012.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3333 duties.

“On Mars, like Earth, we are prepping for the holidays,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

A newly scripted eleven sol plan will take Mars researchers to the end of December.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Complex plan

For this plan, the environmental instruments take the main stage, with lots of Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) activities and a rare, day-long Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive experiment.

“With such a long complex plan, contact science had to be short and sweet today,” O’Connell-Cooper adds.

Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Large nodular features

The robot’s current location is dotted with large nodular features, also identified in other recent workspaces, and scientists would have liked to analyze them with both the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), but it was not to be.

A new plan featured Touch and Go contact science, where APXS and MAHLI analyze a target early in the morning and then the Mars machinery drives to a new location.

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“These plans need complexity to be kept low, so the challenging topography of the nodules meant they were a little too much for today,” O’Connell-Cooper notes. “We will keep our eyes peeled for these in the coming workspaces, in the New Year!”

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Flatlying bedrock

Instead Curiosity’s APXS was slated to analyze some flatlying bedrock “Shinnel” and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will investigate “Castle Sween” which appears to be a small vertical vein face in the workspace.

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Mastcam will document both targets,” O’Connell-Cooper reports before the robot wheels itself nearly 200-feet (60 meters) to a holiday workspace, which will hopefully be chock full of gifts for all the hardworking Curiosity scientists and rover planners, “in the form of fantastic science targets to analyze and vistas to image!”

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Mast Camera Right image acquired on Sol 3331, December 19, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Curiosity Mast Camera Right image acquired on Sol 3331, December 19, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS