Curiosity: Move slowly and don't break things: Sols 3810-3811

Curiosity: Move slowly and don't break things: Sols 3810-3811
by Catherine O'Connell-Cooper | Planetary Geologist - UNB
Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 26, 2023

As the blog for sols 3807-3809 noted, we have cleared the canyon! The accompanying Left Navcam image shows the view back down the canyon, showing all those tricky rocks we had to climb over. You can even spot some wheel tracks further back down if you peer vey closely. We don't exactly have free-wheeling territory up ahead in our drive direction, but it is a little flatter.

This hopefully will give us better views of the path ahead and reduce slippage as we drive, so that we can drive for longer than we have been recently - today, the RPs planned a 25 metre drive, much more ambitious than recent drives! We also will hopefully have a higher rate of passing our "SRAP" test (this stands for Stability Risk Assessment Process and is the way we evaluate rover stability) up here than we did last week as we climbed the canyon. If we fail SRAP, we cannot use the arm instruments MAHLI and APXS - and for me, as a scientist on the APXS team, that's always disappointing.

Fortunately, our weekend drive was successful - it took us where we had planned to go, ending with some solid workspace and safely parked to allow us to take the arm out for contact science. This bedrock has strong laminations apparent along its side and a flat top (seen here in this Left Navcam image of the workspace). The flat top is smooth enough for brushing, so we will DRT "Anortosito Repartimento" before taking MAHLI images, analyzing with APXS and getting a Mastcam multispectral image, all centred on the same spot for maximum science return.

ChemCam will use its LIBS instrument to look at an interesting fracture face, which looks like an upturned smile in the workspace image. "Galeras" is centred on the far right corner of the fracture, where the fracture is thickest. ChemCam will also take a long distance image ("LD RMI") looking much further afield to "Gediz Vallis ridge." These LD RMI can acquire a lot of detail from a great distance, helping to inform discussions about future science campaigns and potential drive directions.

Mastcam will take two mosaics close to the rover, a smaller mosaic looking at a laminated target ("Vichada") to the right of the workspace, and a larger mosaic covering the main block in our workspace (including the ChemCam and APXS/MAHLI targets) and the way that sand has gathered in a trough feature around the block.

Further afield, Mastcam will get an observation of the stratigraphy of the Chenapau butte and some interesting wind scour patterns just beyond today's workspace.

ENV continue to monitor environmental conditions in Gale. In addition to our routine DAN and REMS measurements, Mastcam will acquire three tau measurements, which help to constrain the amount of dust in the atmosphere. Navcam will take a "dust devil" movie, in the hopes of catching a wind vortex in action.

Sols 3807-3809: We Made It to the Top!
by Kristen Bennett, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
It always feels great to reach the top of a mountain, especially when the path was challenging. While the top of Mt. Sharp still looms above Curiosity, the team was very excited to see that in the last drive the rover successfully reached the top of the canyon that it has been climbing for the past few weeks.

After the previous drive fell short of the top of the canyon in marker band valley, in the most recent plan Curiosity rose above the challenge of this terrain to reach the plateau above the canyon. And what a view! (See the front hazcam image displayed above.)

The workspace includes several interesting rocks, including the "Floresta" target which will be cleared of dust by the DRT and then observed by APXS, MAHLI, and Mastcam with a multispectral image. APXS and MAHLI will also target "Calama," which is a rock that appears to have a dark coating on it. A dark toned float rock lies beyond the reach of the arm, so ChemCam will target it ("Ile Portal") for a LIBS observation and Mastcam will take a corresponding image.

A ChemCam RMI mosaic will document the structure and texture of contact between two units in the distance that were mapped from orbital images. Mastcam will also take several stereo observations, including at "Camopi" documenting dark rock textures and their relationship to underlying units, at "Limao" assessing rock textures, and at a location exhibiting interesting patterns in the rocks behind the rover.

The plan also includes coordinated ChemCam passive sky and APXS and SAM atmospheric observations. These measurements from three different instruments will be used together to constrain trace elements that are present in the martian atmosphere.