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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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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 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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NASA has announced the winners of it’s 31st Human Exploration Rover Challenge . The annual engineering competition – one of the agency’s longest standing student challenges – wrapped up on April 11 and April 12, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA NASA has announced the winning student teams in the 2025 Human Exploration Rover Challenge. This year’s competition challenged teams to design, build, and test a lunar rover powered by either human pilots or remote control. In the human-powered division, Parish Episcopal School in Dallas, Texas, earned first place in the high school division, and the Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina, captured the college and university title. In the remote-control division, Bright Foundation in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, earned first place in the middle and high school division, and the Instituto Tecnologico de Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic, captured the college and university title.
The annual engineering competition – one of NASA’s longest standing student challenges – wrapped up on April 11 and April 12, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The complete list of 2025 award winners is provided below:
Human-Powered High School Division
First Place: Parish Episcopal School, Dallas, Texas Second Place: Ecambia High School, Pensacola, Florida Third Place: Centro Boliviano Americano – Santa Cruz, Bolivia Human-Powered College/University Division
First Place: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Second Place: Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Third Place: University of Alabama in Huntsville Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division
First Place: Bright Foundation, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada Second Place: Assumption College, Brangrak, Bangkok, Thailand Third Place: Erie High School, Erie, Colorado Remote-Control College/University Division
First Place: Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Second Place: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Third Place: Tecnologico de Monterey – Campus Cuernvaca, Xochitepec, Morelos, Mexico Ingenuity Award
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada Phoenix Award
Human-Powered High School Division: International Hope School of Bangladesh, Uttara, Dhaka, Bangladesh College/University Division: Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: Bright Foundation, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada College/University Division: Southwest Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, Oklahoma Task Challenge Award
Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: Assumption College, Bangrak, Bangkok, Thailand College/University Division: Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Project Review Award
Human-Powered High School Division: Parish Episcopal School, Dallas, Texas College/University Division: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: Bright Foundation, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada College/University Division: Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Featherweight Award
Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Safety Award
Human-Powered High School Division: Parish Episcopal School, Dallas, Texas College/University Division: University of Alabama in Huntsville Crash and Burn Award
Universidad de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico (Human-Powered Division) Team Spirit Award
Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Human-Powered Division) STEM Engagement Award
Human-Powered High School Division: Albertville Innovation School, Albertville, Alabama College/University Division: Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: Instituto Salesiano Don Bosco, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic College/University Division: Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico Social Media Award
Human-Powered High School Division: International Hope School of Bagladesh, Uttara, Dhaka, Bangladesh College/University Division: Universidad Catolica Boliviana “San Pablo” La Paz, Bolivia Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: ATLAS SkillTech University, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India College/University Division: Instituto Salesiano Don Bosco, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Most Improved Performance Award
Human-Powered High School Division: Space Education Institute, Leipzig, Germany College/University Division: Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, Indiana Remote-Control Middle School/High School Division: Erie High School, Erie, Colorado College/University Division: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Pit Crew Award
Human-Powered High School Division: Academy of Arts, Career, and Technology, Reno, Nevada College/University Division: Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada Artemis Educator Award
Fabion Diaz Palacious from Universidad Catolica Boliviana “San Pablo” La Paz, Bolivia Rookie of the Year
Deira International School, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
More than 500 students with 75 teams from around the world participated in the 31st year of the competition. Participating teams represented 35 colleges and universities, 38 high schools, and two middle schools from 20 states, Puerto Rico, and 16 other nations. Teams were awarded points based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing multiple safety and design reviews with NASA engineers.
NASA expanded the 2025 challenge to include a remote-control division, Remote-Operated Vehicular Research, and invited middle school students to participate.
“This student design challenge encourages the next generation of scientists and engineers to engage in the design process by providing innovative concepts and unique perspectives,” said Vemitra Alexander, who leads the challenge for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. “This challenge also continues NASA’s legacy of providing valuable experiences to students who may be responsible for planning future space missions, including crewed missions to other worlds.”
The rover challenge is one of NASA’s eight Artemis Student Challenges reflecting the goals of the Artemis campaign, which will land Americans on the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration, preparing for future human missions to Mars. NASA uses such challenges to encourage students to pursue degrees and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The competition is managed by NASA’s Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. Since its inception in 1994, more than 15,000 students have participated – with many former students now working at NASA, or within the aerospace industry.
To learn more about the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/home/index.html
News Media Contact
Taylor Goodwin
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
taylor.goodwin@nasa.gov
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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 Mars Home 2 min read
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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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This mosaic showing the Martian surface outside of Jezero Crater was taken by NASA’s Perseverance on Dec. 25, 2024, at the site where the rover cored a sample dubbed “Silver Mountain” from a rock likely formed during Mars’ earliest geologic period.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS The diversity of rock types along the rim of Jezero Crater offers a wide glimpse of Martian history.
Scientists with NASA’s Perseverance rover are exploring what they consider a veritable Martian cornucopia full of intriguing rocky outcrops on the rim of Jezero Crater. Studying rocks, boulders, and outcrops helps scientists understand the planet’s history, evolution, and potential for past or present habitability. Since January, the rover has cored five rocks on the rim, sealing samples from three of them in sample tubes. It’s also performed up-close analysis of seven rocks and analyzed another 83 from afar by zapping them with a laser. This is the mission’s fastest science-collection tempo since the rover landed on the Red Planet more than four years ago.
Perseverance climbed the western wall of Jezero Crater for 3½ months, reaching the rim on Dec. 12, 2024, and is currently exploring a roughly 445-foot-tall (135-meter-tall) slope the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.” The diversity of rocks they have found there has gone beyond their expectations.
“During previous science campaigns in Jezero, it could take several months to find a rock that was significantly different from the last rock we sampled and scientifically unique enough for sampling,” said Perseverance’s project scientist, Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But up here on the crater rim, there are new and intriguing rocks everywhere the rover turns. It has been all we had hoped for and more.”
One of Perseverance’s hazard cameras captured the rover’s coring drill collecting the “Main River” rock sample on “Witch Hazel Hill” on March 10, 2025, the 1,441st Martian day, or sol, of the mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech That’s because Jezero Crater’s western rim contains tons of fragmented once-molten rocks that were knocked out of their subterranean home billions of years ago by one or more meteor impacts, including possibly the one that produced Jezero Crater. Perseverance is finding these formerly underground boulders juxtaposed with well-preserved layered rocks that were “born” billions of years ago on what would become the crater’s rim. And just a short drive away is a boulder showing signs that it was modified by water nestled beside one that saw little water in its past.
Oldest Sample Yet?
Perseverance collected its first crater-rim rock sample, named “Silver Mountain,” on Jan. 28. (NASA scientists informally nickname Martian features, including rocks and, separately, rock samples, to help keep track of them.) The rock it came from, called “Shallow Bay,” most likely formed at least 3.9 billion years ago during Mars’ earliest geologic period, the Noachian, and it may have been broken up and recrystallized during an ancient meteor impact.
About 360 feet (110 meters) away from that sampling site is an outcrop that caught the science team’s eye because it contains igneous minerals crystallized from magma deep in the Martian crust. (Igneous rocks can form deep underground from magma or from volcanic activity at the surface, and they are excellent record-keepers — particularly because mineral crystals within them preserve details about the precise moment they formed.) But after two coring attempts (on Feb. 4 and Feb. 8) fizzled due to the rock being so crumbly, the rover drove about 520 feet (160 meters) northwest to another scientifically intriguing rock, dubbed “Tablelands.”
Data from the rover’s instruments indicates that Tablelands is made almost entirely of serpentine minerals, which form when large amounts of water react with iron- and magnesium-bearing minerals in igneous rock. During this process, called serpentinization, the rock’s original structure and mineralogy change, often causing it to expand and fracture. Byproducts of the process sometimes include hydrogen gas, which can lead to the generation of methane in the presence of carbon dioxide. On Earth, such rocks can support microbial communities.
Coring Tablelands went smoothly. But sealing it became an engineering challenge.
Sealing the “Green Gardens” sample — collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover from a rock dubbed “Tablelands” along the rim of Jezero Crater on Feb. 16, 2025 — pre-sented an engineering challenge. The sample was finally sealed on March 2.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Flick Maneuver
“This happened once before, when there was enough powdered rock at the top of the tube that it interfered with getting a perfect seal,” said Kyle Kaplan, a robotics engineer at JPL. “For Tablelands, we pulled out all the stops. Over 13 sols,” or Martian days, “we used a tool to brush out the top of the tube 33 times and made eight sealing attempts. We even flicked it a second time.”
During a flick maneuver, the sample handling arm — a little robotic arm in the rover’s belly — presses the tube against a wall inside the rover, then pulls the tube away, causing it to vibrate. On March 2, the combination of flicks and brushings cleaned the tube’s top opening enough for Perseverance to seal and store the serpentine-laden rock sample.
Eight days later, the rover had no issues sealing its third rim sample, from a rock called “Main River.” The alternating bright and dark bands on the rock were like nothing the science team had seen before.
Up Next
Following the collection of the Main River sample, the rover has continued exploring Witch Hazel Hill, analyzing three more rocky outcrops (“Sally’s Cove,” “Dennis Pond,” and “Mount Pearl”). And the team isn’t done yet.
“The last four months have been a whirlwind for the science team, and we still feel that Witch Hazel Hill has more to tell us,” said Stack. “We’ll use all the rover data gathered recently to decide if and where to collect the next sample from the crater rim. Crater rims — you gotta love ’em.”
More About Perseverance
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover is characterizing the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and is the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio and the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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