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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 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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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 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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Last Updated Dec 30, 2024 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 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
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Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 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 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
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Last Updated Dec 17, 2024 Related Terms
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