Join the Alien Search, login or register FREE on Aliens and Space Forum

Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site

Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images

By NASA
October 13 in NASA

https://www.aliensandspace.com/topic/14725-sols-4331-4333-today%E2%80%99s-rover-abc-%E2%80%93-aurora-backwards-driving-and-chemistry-with-a-side-of-images/

Followers 0

Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images

A circular, grayscale image from the Martian surface shows rocky terrain with rocks of many different shapes, sizes, and colors. The lower right part of the image is mostly small-to-medium rocks, buried and protruding slightly above the surface. At center left is a layered formation that looks like an offset stack of thick fabric or rug samples. At center is a small, roughly arrowhead-shaped rock nestled among others, but much lighter-toned than anything else in the image.

This image shows just how variable and interesting the terrain is in the area that NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is currently investigating. Curiosity captured this long-distance Remote Micro Imager (RMI) image using the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) aboard the rover on sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024 at 02:30:12 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 11, 2024

This blogger is in the United Kingdom, just north of London, where we yesterday had beautiful night skies with a red aurora that was even visible with the unaided eye, and looked stunning on photographs. That reminded me of the solar storm that made it all the way to Mars earlier this year. Here is my colleague Deborah’s blog about it: “Aurora Watch on Mars.” And, of course, that was a great opportunity to do atmospheric science and prepare for future crewed missions, to assess radiation that future astronauts might encounter. You can read about it in the article, “NASA Watches Mars Light Up During Epic Solar Storm.” But now, back from shiny red night skies north of London, and auroras on Mars six months ago, to today’s planning!

Power — always a negotiation! Today, I was the Science Operations Working Group chair, the one who has to watch for the more technical side of things, such as the question if all the activities will fit into the plan. Today there were many imaging ideas to capture the stunning landscape in detail with Mastcam and very close close-ups with the long-distance imaging capability of ChemCam (RMI). Overall, we have two long-distance RMIs in the plan to capture the details of the ridge we are investigating. You can see in the accompanying image an example from last sol of just how many stunning details we can see. I so want to go and pick up that smooth white-ish looking rock to find out if it is just the light that makes it so bright, or if the surface is different from the underside… but that’s just me, a mineralogist by training, used to wandering around a field site! Do you notice the different patterns — textures as we call them in geology — on the rocks to the left of that white-ish rock and the right of it? So much stunning detail, and we are getting two more RMI observations of 10 frames each in today’s plan! In addition there are more than 80 Mastcam frames planned. Lots of images to learn from!

Chemistry is also featuring in the plan. The rover is stable on its wheels, which means we can get the arm out and do an APXS measurement on the target “Midnight Lake,” which MAHLI also images. The LIBS investigations are seconding the APXS investigation on Midnight Lake, and add another target to the plan, “Pyramidal Pinnacle.” On the third sol there is an AEGIS, the LIBS measurement where the rover picks its own target before we here on Earth even see where it is! Power was especially tight today, because the CheMin team does some housekeeping, in particular looking at empty cells in preparation for the next drill. The atmosphere team adds many investigations to look out for dust devils and the dustiness of the atmosphere, and APXS measures the argon content of the atmosphere. This is a measure for the seasonal changes of the atmosphere, as argon is an inert gas that does not react with other components of the atmosphere. It is only controlled by the temperature in various places of the planet — mainly the poles. DAN continues to monitor water in the subsurface, and RAD — prominently featured during the solar storm I was talking about earlier — continues to collect data on the radiation environment.

Let’s close with a fun fact from planning today: During one of the meetings, the rover drivers were asked, “Are you driving backwards again?” … and the answer was yes! The reason: We need to make sure that in this rugged terrain, with its many interesting walls (interesting for the geologists!), the antenna can still see Earth when we want to send the plan. So the drive on sol 4332 is all backwards. I am glad we have hazard cameras on the front and the back of the vehicle!

Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University

Details

Last Updated

Oct 13, 2024

Related Terms

Blogs

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…

All Mars Resources

Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…

Rover Basics

Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…

mars-perseverance-si1-0045-0670932474-01

Mars Exploration: Science Goals

The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

Color-enhanced_view_of_Jezero_crater_on_

View the full article

Quote

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Reply to this topic...

× Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead

Only 75 emoji are allowed.

× Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead

× Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor

× You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Insert image from URL

https://www.aliensandspace.com/topic/14725-sols-4331-4333-today%E2%80%99s-rover-abc-%E2%80%93-aurora-backwards-driving-and-chemistry-with-a-side-of-images/

Followers 0

Go to topic listing

Similar Topics
- Year in images 2024
  By European Space Agency
  
  Year in images 2024
  Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2023
  View the full article
- Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
  By NASA
  
  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 4 min read
  Sols 4398-4401: Holidays Ahead, Rocks Under the Wheels
  NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Dec. 17, 2024, at 23:24:13 UTC — Sol 4396, or Martian day 4,396, or the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024
  It’s almost holiday time, and preparations are going ahead on Earth and Mars! For myself that means having a packed suitcase sitting behind me to go on my holiday travels tomorrow morning. For Curiosity that means looking forward to a long semi-rest, as we will not do our usual planning for the geology and mineralogy, but will still be monitoring the atmospheric conditions throughout. Today should have been a normal planning day with lots of contact and remote science. Well, Mars had other ideas.
  The regular readers of this blog know that we are driving through quite difficult terrain. The image above gives a good impression on what the rover is dealing with: lots of rocks embedded in sand. I think even hiking would be quite difficult there, let alone driving autonomously. Curiosity, thanks to our excellent rover drivers, makes it successfully most of the time, but here and there Mars just doesn’t play nice. Thus, the rover stopped after 14 meters (about 46 feet) of a planned much longer drive. One of the wheels had caught a low spot between two rocks, and — safety first — the rover stopped and waited for our assessment. The rover drivers found no major problem, as it’s just the middle wheel that hit a bit of a rough patch, and driving can continue in this plan. But better safe than sorry, especially on another planet where there are no tow trucks to get us out of difficulty!
  There was, however, quite a bit of discussion before we decided that course of action. Not because of the wheels themselves, but because the rover also stands in a position where it can only communicate directly with Earth in limited ways as the antenna is not facing the expected direction after the sudden stop. Of course, we still have the orbiters to talk to our rover, so we know it’s all fine. And — all things are three — this all happened on the penultimate plan of the year! Friday we’ll be planning a large set of sols that the rover will be executing on its own on Mars, monitoring the atmosphere and taking regular images of its surroundings, while the Earth-based team enjoys the well-deserved break. We really want to make sure to have everything going right on a day like today, so we all can enjoy the holidays without worrying about the rover!
  With today being the last day of normal science planning, we had lots of ideas, but had to keep the arm stowed. The drive fault also meant that we had to forego arm movements, as the rover was sitting on a few rocks, and one of the wheels in that little depression that stopped us, all in ways that meant that a shift of rover weight (such as occurs when we move the arm) could make the rover move. Avoiding this situation, the team kept the arm stowed and focused on remote observations today. ChemCam observes a vein target called “Monrovia Peak” and takes remote images on the target “Jawbone Canyon” and up Mount Sharp toward the yardang unit. Mastcam looks at the target “Circle X Ranch” to investigate the material around the rocks embedded in the sand, looks at “Anacapa Island,” which is a vein target, “Channel Islands,” which is an aeolian ripple, and target “Gould Mesa,” which gets the team especially excited as this is the first glimpse of the so-called boxwork structures, which we saw from orbit even before Curiosity landed. Finally, we drive away from the spot that held us up today. Let’s hope Mars has read the script this time!
  For the looooong break, we are planning autonomous and remote investigations only, and this starts before Friday’s planning, so that we know all is ok! Thus, the other three sols in today’s planning have Aegis, the automated ChemCam LIBS observation, a Mastcam 360° mosaic, and many, many atmospheric observations. It’s going to be a feast for DAN, REMS, and generally the atmospheric science on Mars, while here on Earth we enjoy the treats of the season. The Curiosity team hopes you do, too. See you in 2025!
  Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
  Share
  
  Details
  Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 Related Terms
  Blogs Explore More
  3 min read Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
  
  Article
  
  11 hours ago
  3 min read Sols 4396-4397: Roving in a Martian Wonderland
  
  Article
  
  2 days ago
  2 min read Sols 4393-4395: Weekend Work at the Base of Texoli Butte
  
  Article
  
  4 days ago
  Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
  Mars
  
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
  
  All Mars Resources
  
  Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
  
  Rover Basics
  
  Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
  
  Mars Exploration: Science Goals
  
  The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
  
  View the full article
- Aurora Australis in Antarctica
  By European Space Agency
  
  Image: The southern lights at Concordia station in Antarctica View the full article
- Sols 4396-4397: Roving in a Martian Wonderland
  By NASA
  
  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 3 min read
  Sols 4396-4397: Roving in a Martian Wonderland
  NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Right Navigation Camera on Dec. 16, 2024 at 00:22:16 UTC — sol 4394, or Martian day 4,394 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Dec. 16, 2024
  Over the weekend Curiosity continued her trek around the northern end of Texoli butte, taking in the beautiful views in all directions. Steep buttes reveal cross-sections through ancient sedimentary strata, while the blocks in our workspace contain nice layers and veins — a detailed record of past surface processes on Mars. Sometimes we get so used to our normal routine of rover operations that I almost forget how incredible it is to be exploring ancient sedimentary rocks on another planet and seeing new data every day. Curiosity certainly found a beautiful field site!
  But the challenges are a good reminder of what it takes to safely explore Mars. We had hoped that the weekend drive could be extended a little bit using a guarded driving mode (using auto navigation), but the drive stopped early during the guarded portion. Because the drive stopped short, we did not have adequate imaging around all of the rover wheels to fully assess the terrain, which meant that unfortunately Curiosity did not pass the Slip Risk Assessment Process (SRAP) and we could not use the rover arm for contact science today. The team quickly pivoted to remote sensing, knowing there will be other chances to use the instruments on the arm in upcoming plans.
  Today’s two-sol plan includes targeted science and a drive on the first sol, followed by untargeted remote sensing on the second sol. The Geology and Mineralogy Theme Group planned ChemCam LIBS and Mastcam on a target named “Avalon” to characterize a dark vein that crosscuts the bedrock in our workspace. Then Curiosity will acquire two long-distance RMI mosaics to document the first glimpse of distant boxwork structures, and a view of the top of Mount Sharp from this perspective. This Martian wonderland includes a lot of beautiful sedimentary structures and fractures, so the team planned Mastcam mosaics to assess a stratigraphic interval that may contain more climbing ripples, another mosaic to characterize the orientation of fractures, and a third mosaic to look at veins and sedimentary layers. Then Curiosity will drive about 50 meters (about 164 feet) to the southwest, and will take post-drive imaging to prepare for planning on Wednesday. The second sol is untargeted, so GEO added an autonomously selected ChemCam LIBS target. The plan includes standard DAN and REMS environmental monitoring activities, plus a dust-devil movie and Navcam line-of-sight observation to assess atmospheric dust.
  I was on shift as Long-Term Planner today, so in addition to thinking about today’s plan, we’re already looking ahead at the activities that the rover will conduct over the December holidays. We’re gearing up to send Curiosity our Christmas wish list later this week, and feeling grateful for the gifts she has already sent us!
  Written by Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
  Share
  
  Details
  Last Updated Dec 17, 2024 Related Terms
  Blogs Explore More
  2 min read Sols 4393-4395: Weekend Work at the Base of Texoli Butte
  
  Article
  
  1 day ago
  3 min read Sols 4391-4392: Rounding the Bend
  
  Article
  
  5 days ago
  3 min read Sols 4389-4390: A Wealth of Ripples, Nodules and Veins
  
  Article
  
  6 days ago
  Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
  Mars
  
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
  
  All Mars Resources
  
  Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
  
  Rover Basics
  
  Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
  
  Mars Exploration: Science Goals
  
  The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
  
  View the full article
- Sols 4393-4395: Weekend Work at the Base of Texoli Butte
  By NASA
  
  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 4393-4395: Weekend Work at the Base of Texoli Butte
  Caption: NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Dec. 12, 2024, at 23:15:47 UTC — sol 4391, or Martian day 4,391, of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Friday, Dec. 13, 2024
  Curiosity continues to make great progress over the Mount Sharp bedrock and will spend the weekend investigating the northern base of the “Texoli” butte. The science team back on Earth enjoyed taking in the beautiful views of nearby “Wilkerson” butte and “Gould Mesa” while digging into the workspace in front of us to create a hefty to-do list for our roving geologist on Mars.
  The rocks at the rover’s wheels today consisted of dusty, pale-colored bedrock that had a range of textures. We used the dust removal tool (DRT), MAHLI, and APXS instruments to characterize lighter, smooth bedrock at “Calabasas Peak,” and slightly darker, rougher bedrock at “Triunfo Canyon.” The ChemCam team used the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to analyze the composition of the rougher bedrock at “Chilao” and a vein that cuts through the bedrock at “Ojai,” and Mastcam provided the supporting documentation images of each target.
  The Mastcam team assembled a variety of images and mosaics in the workspace and beyond. Two stereo mosaics documented the network of fractures in the bedrock at “Fern Dell” while a stereo mosaic of “Amir’s Garden” will be used to observe possible deformation in the rocks. A few single-frame images of troughs in the workspace will be used to investigate active surface processes. Further in the distance, Mastcam created a stereo mosaic of “Jawbone Canyon” to image potential aeolian ripples, and supported a ChemCam long-distance RMI image of a crater in the drive direction called “Grant Lake.” Lastly, ChemCam planned a long-distance RMI image to get a closer look at the structures within Gould Mesa.
  Curiosity will drive 44 meters (about 144 feet) to the west over the weekend as we continue to close in on the intriguing boxwork structures. Lastly, the environmental group rounded out the plan with activities including cloud observations, dust-devil monitoring, and surveys of the amount of dust in the atmosphere.
  Written by: Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
  Share
  
  Details
  Last Updated Dec 16, 2024 Related Terms
  Blogs Explore More
  3 min read Sols 4391-4392: Rounding the Bend
  
  Article
  
  4 days ago
  3 min read Sols 4389-4390: A Wealth of Ripples, Nodules and Veins
  
  Article
  
  5 days ago
  2 min read Looking Out for ‘Lookout Hill’
  
  Article
  
  6 days ago
  Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
  Mars
  
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
  
  All Mars Resources
  
  Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
  
  Rover Basics
  
  Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
  
  Mars Exploration: Science Goals
  
  The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
  
  View the full article
Check out these Videos

Sign In

Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images

Recommended Posts

NASA

Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images

Share

Details

Related Terms

Discover More Topics From NASA