Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3427, March 28, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3428 duties.

“Unfortunately, our weekend drive stalled, so this morning we found ourselves still at Friday’s workspace,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

“Fortunately, it was an understood issue… and this was a good place to spend some extra time and fill our science glass with amazing data! This workspace (“Hartle Loup”) has examples of different textures, bands of “vuggy” (little holes or pits), material and smoother material.

Mastcam image taken on Sol 3419 showing different textures at “Hartle Loup.”
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Hard choices

Last Friday, the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) had to make some hard choices between all the desired targets, and scientists opted to characterize some “vuggy” targets but were unable to also get the “smooth” targets.

“So, in a sense, the drive stall worked in our favor,” O’Connell-Cooper adds, allowing scientists to get three “smooth” targets. APXS and MAHLI was scheduled to investigate “Broadfell” and a brushed target “Venlaw,” whilst the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will use Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to target “Cleveland.”

Curiosity Mast Camera Right image taken on Sol 3425, March 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Mastcam was slated to take multispectral imagery (a further tool to help understand composition, often used for brushed targets) of Venlaw and researchers were able to add a bonus multispectral image of the weekend Dust Removal Tool (DRT) target (“Donkey Trail”) which researchers didn’t have time for on Friday.

Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Left B Camera image taken on Sol 3427, March 28, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Overlapping images

MAHLI took the opportunity to slip in a six image mosaic (series of overlapping images) looking at the interaction between the two textures. ChemCam will also examine “Bowder Stone,” a bedrock target that was broken up by the rover’s wheels last week, O’Connell-Cooper reports.

Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Right B Camera image acquired on Sol 3427, March 28, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Mastcam has, as always, a very busy plan,” O’Connell-Cooper notes. It will document the ChemCam targets from the scripted plan, recover an image from the weekend on “Burn Mouth” which didn’t complete and get some more images of the pediment landscape.

Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) Sol 3426 March 27, 2022
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Drive path

“Mastcam will also aid the environmental group in monitoring dust concentrations in the air, obtaining a crater rim extinction observation and a basic ‘tau’ measurement, both of which are used to determine how much dust is the atmosphere,” O’Connell-Cooper points out.

“Once we finish getting all this lovely bonus science at Hartle Loup, we will continue on our way, following the same drive path as we had planned to take over the weekend,” says O’Connell-Cooper.

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3424, March 25, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Vuggy rock

In an earlier report, Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, pointed out that vuggy rock in the “Hartle Loup” outcrop seemed particularly unique relative to the other rocks on the Greenheugh Pediment that scientists have seen to-date.

In addition to the contact science, Curiosity continued the effort to image as much of the Greenheugh Pediment and Gediz Vallis Ridge as possible from the rover’s location with Mastcam and the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI).

“We will likely never have this perspective on this portion of those features, so we’re being very thorough with our imaging,” Guzewich adds.