“Mont Mercou” as seen by the left navigation camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity at Sol 3074. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. Download image ›
Sol 3081 will be a busy one for Curiosity. The rover is still near the junction between the “Glasgow” member and the sulfate-carrying unit; Since this is a major geological transition, the science team is trying to collect as much data as possible before moving.
First, the rover plans to do a “touch-and-go”, connecting and performing targeted science from a distance before driving away. First, Curiosity will get some arm exercise by doing APXS and MALHI observations of “Puymangou,” a dark spot on a rock in front of the rover. Science will test whether the color difference represents a difference in composition from the nearby rock. For the Rover Planners (of which I am one today) this is a challenging target as it is small and slightly elevated from the surrounding parts of the rock. We must also avoid the nearby sandbags that are trapped by the surface roughness of the rock. After the arm activities, Curiosity will put the arm away in preparation for driving.
Before you drive off, there is a series of focused scientific observations with Mastcam. In addition to a small 3×3 mosaic of the contact science target, we take a large stereo mosaic of “Mont Mercou” from the southwest to get a better view of the sedimentary structures of the ridge. In addition to all the photos we took from other locations around Mont Mercou, this latest set allows us to build a complete 3D model of it. In the same pre-drive time, ChemCam will also perform a passive sky observation as part of our environmental suite.
Then we say goodbye to Mont Mercou and start our ride, about 30 meters to the south-southwest. The terrain in this area is both quite rocky and sandy, which is another challenge for the Rover Planners. Curiosity will work its way around some of the sharper rocks and larger stretches of sand to land at a high point that should provide a good view for planning the next ride, and also land on a rock to get into contact science in the weekend as possible. plan. The Rover Planners (and Curiosity’s wheels) are definitely looking forward to being further south where the terrain is more favorable and our rides will no longer look like a slalom course.
After the ride, we will use some imaging to support the next ride, as well as some additional ChemCam observations of the sky and its calibration targets to continue to monitor the health of the instrument. Just around sunset, we will do another series of cloud observations with Mastcam and Navcam in hopes of regaining a spectacular view of the cloudy sky of Mars and a MARDI image of the ground below the rover. Finally, we’ll do some more environmental observations early the next morning, including a dust devil movie and a supra-horizon movie.
On the second sol of the plan, we do more ambient atmospheric observations of the sun, the horizon, more dust devil movies, as well as some twilight Mastcam images.