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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 3 min read
Sols 4441-4442: Winter is Coming
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of its workspace, which includes some polygonal fracture features just to the left of the top center of the image, using its Left Navigation Camera on sol 4439, or Martian day 4,439 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, on Jan. 31, 2025, at 05:43:05 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
Here in Earth’s northern hemisphere, the days are slowly getting longer, bringing with them the promise of an end to winter. While we are anticipating the return of warmer temperatures, just over 100 million kilometers (more than 62 million miles) away, Curiosity is starting to feel the bite of the colder season.
One of the quirks of Mars’ orbital configuration is that aphelion (when Mars is farthest from the Sun) occurs about a month and a half before the southern winter solstice. This means that winters in the southern hemisphere (where Curiosity is located) are both longer and colder than those in the northern hemisphere. Consequently, we need to spend more of our power on keeping the rover warm, limiting the time that can be spent doing science.
Today’s plan was fairly constrained by the available power, so our various instrument and science teams had to carefully coordinate their requests to ensure that we stay within the power limits that have been budgeted out over the next several plans. Our team is never one to back down from a challenge, so this plan squeezes as much science as possible out of every watt-hour of power we were given.
Our drive from Wednesday’s plan completed successfully (quite an accomplishment in the current terrain!). One of our wheels ended up perched a few centimetres up on a rock, so we aren’t able to use APXS or DRT today, but we were still able to unstow the arm to take some MAHLI images.
This plan kicks off with a pair of ChemCam and Mastcam coordinated activities. The first of these two focuses on some interesting polygonal fractures that we ended up parked in front of (see the image above). ChemCam will use its LIBS laser on these fractures before they are imaged by Mastcam. ChemCam will then use its RMI camera to take a mosaic of some features on the crater floor way off in the distance, which Mastcam will also image. Mastcam then goes it alone, with images of “Vivian Creek” (some sedimentary layers in today’s contact science target), “Dawn Mine” (a potential meteorite), and a trough off of the rover’s right side. The Environmental Science (ENV) team will continue their monitoring of the environment with a Mastcam tau to measure dust in the atmosphere as well as Navcam cloud and dust devil movies. After a short nap, the arm is unstopped to take a number of MAHLI images of “Coldwater Canyon,” over a range of distances between 5 and 25 centimeters away (about 2-10 inches).
The second sol of this plan is largely consumed by ENV activities, including another tau and a Navcam line-of-sight observation to monitor dust. A big chunk of this sol’s plan is taken up by ChemCam passive observations (not using the LIBS laser) of the atmosphere. This “passive sky” observation allows us to measure atmospheric aerosol properties and the amount of oxygen and water in the air. Of course, ENV couldn’t have all the fun, so this sol also contains a typical ChemCam LIBS observation of “Big Dalton” with a Mastcam image afterward. After stowing the arm, we will drive off from our current location.
Right before handing off to Monday’s plan, we wrap up with our typical early-morning ENV weekend science time, which includes more tau and line-of-sight dust observations and several Navcam cloud movies. RAD, REMS, and DAN also continue their monitoring of the environment throughout this plan.
Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University
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Last Updated Feb 04, 2025 Related Terms
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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 The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4439-4440: A Lunar New Year on Mars
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image, which includes the prominent wedge-shaped block in the foreground, the imaging target dubbed “Vasquez Rocks” — named after a site in Southern California that’s been a popular filming location for movies and television, including several episodes of “Star Trek.” Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on sol 4437 — Martian day 4,437 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Jan. 29, 2025, at 04:25:25 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025
We’re planning sols 4439 and 4440 on the first day of the Lunar New Year here on Earth, and I’m the Geology/Mineralogy Science Theme Lead for today. The new year is a time for all kinds of abundance and good luck, and we are certainly lucky to be celebrating another new year on Mars with the Curiosity rover!
The rover’s current position is on the north side of the “Texoli” butte west of the “Rustic Canyon” crater, and we are on our way southwest through the layered sulfate unit toward a possible boxwork structure that we hope to study later this year. Today’s workspace included a couple of representative bedrock blocks with contrasting textures, so we planned an APXS elemental chemistry measurement on one (“Deer Springs”) and a LIBS elemental measurement on another (“Taco Peak”).
For imaging, there were quite a few targets in view making it possible to advance a variety of science goals. The ChemCam remote imager was used for a mosaic on “Wilkerson Butte” to observe the pattern of resistant and recessive layering. Mastcam mosaics explored some distant landforms (“Sandstone Peak,” “Wella’s Peak”) as well as fractures, block shapes and textures, and aeolian ripples closer to the rover (“Tahquitz Peak,” “Mount Islip,” “Vasquez Rocks,” “Dawson Saddle”). Our regular environmental science measurements were made as well, to track atmospheric opacity and dust activity. So our planning sols include an abundance of targets indeed.
Fun fact: Today’s name “Vasquez Rocks” comes from a site on Earth in Southern California that has been a popular spot for science fiction filming, appearing in several episodes of “Star Trek” going back to the original series!
Written by Lucy Lim, Participating Scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center
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Last Updated Jan 31, 2025 Related Terms
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Sols 4437-4438: Coordinating our Dance Moves
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on sol 4435 — Martian day 4,435 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Jan. 27, 2025, at 02:23:35 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 27, 2025
I was Geology and Mineralogy (Geo) Science Team lead today, and my day started with a bang and a drum roll — delivered by a rare winter thunderstorm (rare here in England, at least). I did lose power for a few minutes, but thanks to laptop batteries and phone Wi-Fi, I think no one noticed … so, shhh, don’t tell the boss!
Planning was especially interesting as we had a decision to make, whether we want to align ChemCam and APXS observations with each other and focus on one target, or whether we want two different targets. As Geo Science Team lead, it is my role to facilitate this discussion, but that is always fun — and easy. Many colleagues come with well-prepared reasons for why they want to have a certain observation in today’s plan, and I always learn something new about Mars, or geology, or both when those discussions happen. Weighing all arguments carefully, we decided for the coordinated dance of contact and remote science observations on a bedrock target we named “Desert View.” APXS will start the dance, followed by ChemCam active and one RMI image on the same location. Closing out the dance will be MAHLI, by imaging the APXS target that at this point will have the laser pits.
Such a coordinated observation will allow us to see how the rock reacts to the interaction with the laser. We have done this many times, and often learnt interesting things about the mineralogy of the rock. But more than 10 years ago, there was an even more ambitious coordination exercise: On sol 687 the imaging on a target called “Nova” was timed so that Mastcam actually captured the laser spark in the image. While that’s useful for engineering purposes, as a mineralogist I want to see the effect on the rock. Here is the result of that “spark” on target Nova on sol 687.
But back to today’s planning. Apart from the coordinated observations, ChemCam also adds to the Remote Micro Imager coverage of Gould Mesa with a vertical RMI observation that is designed to cover all the nice layers in the mesa, just like a stratigraphic column. Mastcam is looking back at the Rustic Canyon crater to get a new angle. Craters are three-dimensional and looking at it from all sides will help decipher the nature of this small crater, and also make full use of the window into the underground that it offers. Mastcam has two more mosaics, “Condor Peak” and “Boulder Basin,” which are both looking at interesting features in the landscape: Condor Peak at a newly visible butte, and Boulder Basin at bedrock targets in the near-field, to ascertain the structures and textures are still the same as they have been, or document any possible changes. Mars has surprised us before, so we try to look as often as power and other resources allow, even if only to confirm that nothing has changed. You can see the blocks that we are using for this observation in the grayscale Navigation Camera image above; we especially like it when upturned blocks give us a different view, while flat lying blocks in the same image show the “regular” perspective.
After the targeted science is completed, the rover will continue its drive along the planned route, to see what Mars has to offer on the next stop. After the drive, MARDI will take its image, and ChemCam do an autonomous observation, picking its own target. Also after the drive is a set of atmospheric observations to look at dust levels and search for dust devils. Continuous observations throughout include the DAN instrument’s observation of the surface and measurements of wind and temperature.
With that, the plan is again making best use of all the power we have available… and here in England the weather has improved, inside my power is back to normal, and outside it’s all back to the proverbial rain this small island is so famous for.
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
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Last Updated Jan 29, 2025 Related Terms
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Sols 4416-4417: New Year, New Clouds
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image of noctilucent clouds using its Right Navigation Camera on sol 4401 — or Martian day 4,401 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Dec. 23, 2024, at 08:57:15 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 6, 2025
After our marathon holiday plan, we’re easing back into the new year with a standard two-sol plan. We did arrive today to the news that the drive hadn’t made it as far as we wanted, but luckily the rover planners determined that we were still in a good position to do contact science on two wintry targets — “Snow Creek” and “Winter Creek.” We also packed in lots of remote science with ChemCam using LIBS on “Grapevine” and “Skull Rock,” and we are doing long-distance imaging of the Texoli and Wilkerson buttes, and Gould Mesa. Mastcam will be imaging a number of targets near and far as well including “Red Box”’ “Point Mugu,” “Stone Canyon,” “Pine Cove,” and “Hummingbird Sage,” which will examine various structures in the bedrock. We can’t forget about the atmosphere either — we have a couple dust-devil surveys to look for dust lifting, but the real star of the show (at least for me) is the cloud imaging.
While we’re just into 2025 here on Earth, we’re also near the start of a new year on Mars! A Mars year starts at the northern vernal equinox (or the start of autumn in the southern hemisphere, where Curiosity is), and Mars year 38 started on Nov. 12.
We’re about a third of the way through autumn on Mars now, and the southern Martian autumn and winter bring one thing — clouds! Near the start of the Martian year we start seeing clouds around sunset. These are noctilucent (meaning “night illuminated”) clouds. Even though the sun has set in Gale Crater, the clouds are high enough in the atmosphere that the sun still shines on them, making them seem to almost glow in the sky. You can see this with clouds on Earth, too, around twilight! Mars year 38 will be our fourth year capturing these twilight clouds, and the Navcam images (one of which you can see above) already show it’s shaping up to be another year of spectacular clouds!
Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University
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Last Updated Jan 08, 2025 Related Terms
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Sols 4402-4415: Rover Decks and Sequence Calls for the Holidays
An image under the left-front wheel of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows a block that Curiosity drove over and possibly broke in half. The rover acquired this image using its Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) on sol 4396 — Martian day 4,396 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Dec. 18, 2024 at 06:03:35 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Earth planning date: Friday, Dec. 20, 2024
Welcome to the 2024 holiday plan for Curiosity! This year we’re spanning 14 sols to last us through the Earth new year. And this is my fourth year operating Mastcam during the holidays (throwback to 2023 Marsmas!). I already knew to expect a long day, so I got my lunch prepared — blew Mars a kiss in the pre-dawn sky — and headed to work at 0600 Pacific time to start planning prep. Luckily my team got a head start on Mastcam images by including a full 360-degree panorama, post-drive, last plan, so I just had to fill in some gaps and cover some buttes with our higher-resolution camera. In total we’re only planning about 438 images this holiday, which is a pretty light haul if you can believe it! We also didn’t pass SRAP to unstow the arm (again) today, which is a bummer for science but usually makes my job easier since Mastcam doesn’t have to worry about where the arm might be during our imaging. One instrument’s coal is another instrument’s present!
So we’re doing things a little funky this holiday. We’re planning science on the first, seventh, 13th, and 14th sols — with a drive and a soliday! The hardest part of this plan was keeping it all straight in our heads.
Without any contact science planned, MAHLI went on holiday early (actually, she’s been out all week!) and APXS only had to babysit an atmospheric integration, which doesn’t require any arm motion. ChemCam has three LIBS and four RMI mosaics planned, which is definitely more than usual. But actually, the highest sequence count for today goes to Mastcam! Our usual limit is around 20 sequences for complexity reasons, but today I delivered 34 total sequences. Of those 34 sequences, 10 are for tracking surface changes from wind, seven are for measuring the atmospheric opacity, three are ChemCam LIBS documentations, three are for documenting our location post-drive, two are large mosaics of Texoli and Wilkerson buttes, and two are for noctilucent cloud searching (our first attempts to find clouds this Martian winter!).
With any luck, we’ll start passing SRAP again in 2025 after another approximately 58-meter drive (about 190 feet). Until then, Earthlings — Merry Marsmas and Happy Earth New Year!
Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
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