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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 5 min read
Sols 4518-4519: Thumbs up from Mars
This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4516. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
Earth planning date: Monday, 21st April 2025
It is Easter Monday, a bank holiday here in the United Kingdom. I am Science Operations Working Group Chair today, a role that is mainly focused on coordinating all the different planning activities on a given day, and ensuring all the numbers are communicated to everyone. And with that I mean making sure that everyone knows how much power we have and other housekeeping details. It’s a fun role, but on the more technical side of the mission, which means I don’t get to look at the rocks in the workspace as closely as my colleagues who are planning the activities of the instruments directly investigating the rocks. It’s a lot of fun to see how planning day after planning day things come together. But why am I doing this on a bank holiday, when I could well be on my sofa? I just was reminded in the hours before planning how much fun it actually is to spend a little more time looking at all the images – and not the usual hectic rush coming out of an almost complete work day (we start at 8 am PDT, which is 4 pm here in the UK!). So, I enjoyed the views of Mars, and I think Mars gave me a thumbs up for it, or better to say a little pointy ‘rock up’ in the middle of a sandy area, as you can see in the image above!
I am sure you noticed that our team has a lot to celebrate! Less than a month after the publication about alkanes made headlines in many news outlets, we have another big discovery from our rover, now 4518 sols on Mars: in three drill holes, the rover instruments detected the mineral siderite, a carbonate. That allowed a group of scientists from our team to piece together the carbon cycle of Mars. If you want to know more, the full story is here. I am looking forward to our next big discovery. Who knows that that is? Well, it would not be exploration, if we knew!
But today’s workspace looks intriguing with all its little laminae (the very fine layers) and its weathering patterns that look like a layered cake that little fingers have picked the icing off! (Maybe I had too many treats of the season this weekend? That’s for you to decide!) But then Mars did what it did so many times lately: we did not pass our slip risk assessment and therefore had to keep the arm stowed. I think there is a direct link between geologists getting exciting about all the many rocks, and a wheel ending up on one of them, making it unsafe to unstow the arm. There was a collective sigh of disappointment – and then we moved on to what we actually can do.
And that is a lot of imaging. As exciting as getting an APXS measurement and MAHLI images would be, Mastcam images, ChemCam chemistry and RMI images are exciting, too. The plan starts with three Mastcam activities to document the small troughs that form around some of the rocks. Those amount to 15 frames already, then we have a ten-frame mosaic on a target called “West Fork,” which is looking at rocks in the middle ground of the scenery and display interesting layering. Finally, a 84 frame mosaic will image Texoli, one of the large buttes in our neighbourhood, in all its beauty. It shows a series of interesting layers and structures, including some that might be akin to what we expect the boxwork structures to look like. Now, did you keep count? Yes, that’s 109 frames from Mastcam – and add the one for the documentation of the LIBS target, too, and Mastcam takes exactly 110 frames!
ChemCam is busy with a target called “Lake Poway,” which represents the bedrock around us. Also in the ChemCam activities is a long distance RMI upwards Mt Sharp to the Yardang unit. After the drive – more of that later – ChemCam as an automated observation, we call it AEGIS, where ChemCam uses a clever algorithm to pick its own target.
The drive will be very special today. As you may have seen, we are imaging our wheels in regular intervals to make sure that we are keeping track of the wear and tear that over 34 km of offroad driving on Mars have caused. For that, we need a very flat area and our rover drivers did locate one due West of the current rover positions. So, that’s where we will drive first, do the full MAHLI wheel imaging and then return to the originally planned path. That’s where we’ll do a MARDI image, post drive imaging to prepare the planning for the next sols, and the above mentioned AEGIS.
In addition to all the geologic investigations, there is continuous environmental monitoring ongoing. Curiosity will look at opacity and dust devils, and REMS will switch on regularly to measure wind speeds, humidity, temperature, ultraviolet radiation and pressure throughout the plan. Let’s not forget DAN, which monitors water and chlorine in the subsurface as we are driving along. It’s so easy to forget the ones that sit quietly in the back – but in this case, they have important data to contribute!
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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4515-4517: Silver Linings
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4514 NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick
Earth planning date: Friday, April 18, 2025
As the APXS operations person today, I was hopeful that we could plan a compositional measurement after brushing one of the bedrock blocks in front of the rover. However, it soon became clear that the rover was not on stable enough ground to safely unstow the arm and place APXS and MAHLI. Silver linings though; by not having any arm movement in this plan, which requires significant energy, we were able to conserve power for what we hope will be a busy week of upcoming science activities as we drive towards our next high priority area of interest – the so-called boxwork formations. These are large resistant ridges identified from orbit, which may be the result of fracturing, fluid flow and alteration within the sulfate unit that we are traversing through. We plan to image them on approach to gain insights into their context.
Despite the loss of arm activities, we still have plenty of interesting observations planned for this 3-sol weekend. ChemCam will fire its laser at two separate rock targets, “Santa Ynez” and “Cahuilla”, which will also be captured with Mastcam documentation images. The targets are on two different bedrock blocks with the “Cahuilla” raster focused on a thin resistant layer. ChemCam will also use its remote imaging capabilities to obtain mosaics of the “Texoli” butte and another interesting feature, “Torote Bowl”. Mastcam will capture mosaics of “San Gabriel River” (an apparent angular contact) and of some sand troughs surrounding many of the bedrock blocks in this region. An image will also be acquired of a small, grey float pebble, “Piru Creek.”
The environmental science group was also able to plan a number of activities to catch up on their regular cadence, which has been impacted by the recent power constraints. We are acquiring Navcam line of sight observations (x2), suprahorizon movies (x2), a zenith movie and a 360 degree sky survey, as well as a Mastcam sky survey. Coordinated ChemCam passive sky and APXS atmospheric observations are also planned.
There is a ~19 m drive planned through this tricky terrain that will hopefully set us up for arm activities (APXS and MAHLI) in our new workspace next week. The plan is completed with standard RAD, DAN and REMS activities, as well as two MARDI images to record the terrain beneath the rover in the current and new workspace.
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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read
Sols 4511-4512: Low energy after a big weekend?
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4510 (2025-04-14 03:43:40 UTC). NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Earth planning date: Monday, April 14, 2025
We all know the feeling: it’s Monday morning after a big weekend and you’re coming into the week wishing you’d had a little more time to rest and recharge. Well, Curiosity probably feels the same way today. Curiosity accomplished a lot over the weekend, including full contact science, a MAHLI stereo imaging test, testing the collection of ChemCam passive spectral data at the same time as data transmission with one of the orbiters, and some APXS and MAHLI calibration target activities, plus a long 57 m drive. It was great to see all of those activities in the plan and to see some great drive progress. But that means we’re a bit tight on power for today’s plan!
I was on shift as Long Term Planner today, and the team had to think carefully about science priorities to fit within our power limit for today’s plan, and how that will prepare us for the rest of the week. The team still managed to squeeze a lot of activities into today’s 2-sol plan. First, Curiosity will acquire Mastcam mosaics to investigate local stratigraphic relationships and diagenetic features. Then we’ll acquire some imaging to document the sandy troughs between bedrock blocks to monitor active surface processes. We’ll also take a Navcam mosaic to assess atmospheric dust. The science block includes a ChemCam LIBS observation on the bedrock target “Santa Margarita” and a long distance RMI mosaic of “Ghost Mountain” to look for possible boxwork structures. Then Curiosity will use the DRT, APXS and MAHLI to investigate the finely-laminated bedrock in our workspace at a target named “The Grotto.” We’ll also collect APXS and MAHLI data on a large nodule in the workspace named “Torrey Pines” (meanwhile the Torrey Pines here on Earth was shaking in today’s southern California earthquakes! All is well but it gave some of our team members an extra jolt of adrenaline right before the SOWG meeting). The second sol is focused on continuing our drive to the south and taking post-drive imaging to prepare for Wednesday’s plan.
Phew! Good job Curiosity, you made it through Monday.
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Sols 4509-4510: A weekend of long drives
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4507 (2025-04-11 03:54:35 UTC). Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, April 11, 2025
Curiosity is continuing to book it to the potential boxwork structures. The rover drove over 50 meters on Wednesday, and we plan to drive more than 50 meters again in today’s plan thanks to an unusually good viewshed that allows us to see far ahead. We’ve been able to see glimpses of the boxwork structures in the distance for a few weeks now, and I am really excited about being able to plan long drives that get us closer and closer. What will we find when we reach them?
Power was on everyone’s mind as we put the plan together today. The science team had lots of amazing ideas about observations to collect from our current location, but we had to carefully plan and prioritize them to make sure we didn’t use too much power and leave the rover battery lower than we’d like for Monday’s plan. Winter on Mars certainly keeps us on our toes! We ended up putting together what I think is a pretty good set of activities for the weekend. MAHLI, APXS, and ChemCam will all work together to observe a flat rock in front of us named “Iron Mountain.” MAHLI will also do an experiment with this rock, testing different combinations of camera positions to see which produces the best data to help us generate 3D models of the rock’s surface. I know rocks don’t have feelings, but if they did, I hope Iron Mountain can use this time to feel a bit like a movie star on the red carpet, getting photographed from all angles. Mastcam will also be photographing the surroundings, working with ChemCam’s RMI imager to take images the ridge containing boxwork structures named “Ghost Mountain,” and taking some solo shots of targets in the foreground named “Redondo Flat,” “Silverwood Sanctuary,” and the oft photographed Gould Mesa. Navcam, REMS, and DAN round out the science plan with some environmental observations. We’ll be getting one more science and engineering hybrid observation when we collect ChemCam passive spectral data of the instrument’s calibration target in parallel with one of our communication passes. This observation is part of a series of tests we’re doing to run rover activities in parallel with these passes, and if successful, will allow us to be more even more power efficient in the future.
We’re also celebrating a soliday this weekend, which means we only have a two-sol plan instead of our usual three as the Mars and Earth time zones re-align for the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to seeing where Curiosity drives next week.
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Sols 4507-4508: “Just Keep Driving”
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, on April 9, 2025, Sol 4505 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission, at 00:56:30 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
Earth planning date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Our drive from Monday’s plan was mostly successful, putting us ~22 meters down the “road” out of an expected 30 meters. A steering command halted the drive a little short when we tried to turn-in-place but instead turned into a rock, which also had the effect of making our position too unstable for arm activities. Oh well! APXS data has been showing the recent terrain as being pretty similar in composition, so the team isn’t complaining about trying again after another drive. Plus, keeping the arm stowed should give us a little more power to play with in the coming sols (an ongoing struggle this Martian winter).
Recently, my job on Mastcam has been to make sure our science imaging is as concurrent as possible with required rover activities. This strategy helps save rover awake time, AKA power consumption. Today we did a pretty good job with this, only increasing the total awake time by ~2 minutes even though we planned 52 images! Our imaging today included a mosaic of the “Devil’s Gate” ridge including some nodular bedrock and distant “Torote Bowl,” a mosaic of a close-by vein network named “Moonstone Beach,” and several sandy troughs surrounding the bedrock blocks we see here.
ChemCam is planning a LIBS raster on a vertical vein in our workspace named “Jackrabbit Flat,” and a distant RMI mosaic of “Condor Peak” (a butte to the north we’re losing view of). Our drive will happen in the 1400 hour on the first sol, hopefully landing us successfully 53 meters further into this new valley on our way to the boxwork structures to the west! Post-drive, we’re including a test of a “Post Traverse Autonav Terrain Observation” AKA PoTATO – an easy drop-in activity for ground analysis of a rover-built navigation map of our new terrain. Plus we get to say PoTATO a lot.
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