By 
May 30th, 2022
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Left image taken on Sol 3485, May 27, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater has just begun performing Sol 3489 duties.
Intrepid rover engineers again successfully navigated Curiosity a little higher up Mount Sharp – roughly 16 feet (5 meters) and 131 feet (40 meters) on the ground, away from our previous location, reports Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
“The terrain beneath the rover included striated, dusty bedrock and sand ripples with coarse lag deposits,” Thompson adds.
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Left image taken on Sol 3485, May 27, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dusty bedrock
As a member of the geology/mineralogy planning team and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) payload uplink lead today, Thompson chose several interesting areas in the workspace for potential arm, contact science.
“The rover engineers assessed these targets before we settled on a representative bedrock area.” The plan calls for two APXS observations on the dusty bedrock, and on a brushed area, with accompanying Mars Hand Lens Imager photos of (“Pitinga”).
“This will help us assess the effect of the ubiquitous dust cover on APXS compositional analyses of the bedrock. The measurement of the brushed bedrock also constitutes part of our systematic monitoring of bedrock composition with APXS every 10 meters of elevation gain, as we climb Mount Sharp,” Thompson points out.
Dust Removal Tool action. Photo taken by Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), produced on Sol 3488, May 30, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
This is important as the rover is in a region identified from orbit as showing a change in mineralogy and, potentially, the environment within Gale crater. The brushed target will be imaged with Mastcam, which will also image the two rock targets being analyzed with the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS): “Rio Pipi” – dusty bedrock in the ground, and “Barama” – layered bedrock face; as well as some crevices within the sand and rock in the workspace.
Mesmerizing view
“Looking beyond the immediate workspace, the view ahead is mesmerizing with interesting textures and structures both in the near- and far-field,” Thompson reports.
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Right image acquired on Sol 3485, May 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Mastcam and the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) is slated to image the platy, darker, layered ledge in the middle of the image in more detail, but offset to the right (”Dukwari”).
“Mastcam will also image a cliff off to the right of the rover to document textures, structures and layering (“Cantarrana”). Once Curiosity has executed all the targeted science observations, the rover engineers are planning a drive towards the lip, Thompson adds. “That should afford us a better view to plan upcoming drives as we continue climbing Mount Sharp.”
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Right image acquired on Sol 3485, May 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dust storm
The environmental scientists planned several observations to continue monitoring changes in atmospheric conditions and the current dust storm within Gale crater.
These included: Navcam line of sight images, a large dust devil survey, suprahorizon movies, a dust devil movie, and a zenith movie; and Mastcam basic and full tau observations.
After a hopefully successful drive, the robot will image the terrain beneath the rover wheels with the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI).
The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite instrument is also to be running a fake handoff and a blank solid sample evolved gas experiment.
Standard Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) activities round out this plan, Thompson concludes.
Curiosity Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) photo taken on Sol 3486, May 28, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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