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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 4464-4465: Making Good Progress
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) on Feb. 23, 2025 — sol 4462, or Martian day 4,462 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 21:43:37 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Earth planning date: Monday, Feb. 24, 2025
Over the weekend Curiosity drove about 48 meters (about 157 feet) to the southwest, continuing to march along on our traverse past Texoli butte and Gould Mesa. I was on shift as the LTP today, and it was great to see the good drive progress, interesting workspace, and exciting stratigraphy that lies ahead.
Today’s two-sol plan includes contact science and a drive on the first sol, followed by untargeted remote sensing on the second sol. The Geology theme group got straight to work evaluating contact science targets, and decided on a nodular block named “Matilija Poppy” for APXS and MAHLI observations. Then the team turned their attention to the remote sensing activities. There are a variety of interesting rock textures near the rover, so the team spent some time planning Mastcam imaging and ChemCam LIBS activities to assess the diversity. Some blocks have polygonal fractures with raised ridges, while other blocks are more nodular or well-laminated. In addition to looking at the bedrock, Mastcam will document local troughs in the loose sand between blocks, to understand more recent surface processes. The team planned a ChemCam LIBS observation on one of the polygonal fractures at a target named “East Fork” and two long-distance ChemCam RMI mosaics of Gould Mesa to assess the distant stratigraphy. Then Curiosity will drive about 30 meters (about 98 feet) further to the south, and take post-drive imaging to prepare for Wednesday’s plan.
On the second sol Curiosity will take an autonomously selected ChemCam target, along with multiple environmental monitoring observations to search for dust devils, monitor atmospheric dust, and evaluate clouds. It was a pretty smooth day of planning, and it’s always nice to see how the team works together to accomplish a lot of great science. Looking forward to continuing to make great progress as we start climbing uphill again!
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Last Updated Feb 26, 2025 Related Terms
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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 2 min read
Sols 4450-4451: Making the Most of a Monday
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of its brightly lit workspace and its right-front wheel in the shadows, perched on some tall rocks. The rover used its Right Front Hazcam (Front Hazard Avoidance Camera) to capture the image on sol 4449 — or Martian day 4,449 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — Feb. 10, 2025, at 10:44:45 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Feb. 10, 2025
Last Saturday around 20:00 Pacific Standard Time I saw a 22-degree halo encircling our mostly-full Moon and Mars; an entire planet hanging in the sky between our Moon and the atmospheric phenomenon. As I took in the view I wondered what our rover was doing at that moment… turns out the Sun had just risen over Gale crater and Curiosity was still asleep, waiting for her alarm to go off in about 2.5 hours for another full day of science.
She wouldn’t start the weekend’s drive until Monday morning about 1:30, while I was still asleep waiting for my alarm to sound at 5:15. The drive’s data arrived on Earth about 5:30, and told us we drove until our time-of-day limit for driving — stopping about 36 meters (about 118 feet) away from Friday’s location. Unfortunately, our right-front wheel was shown to be perched on some tall rocks and we couldn’t quantify the drop risk if we unstowed the arm. We decided to play it safe and keep the arm stowed instead.
Today’s two-sol plan would normally be in “nominal” sols — meaning we’d get a full day of science and a drive on the second sol — but due to some DSN downtime on Earth we moved our drive to the first sol, therefore switching to “restricted” sols a bit earlier than usual after our last soliday. Even though we couldn’t plan contact science, we’re making the most of our plan with almost 90 minutes of remote sensing. Mastcam will take an approximately 24-frame stereo mosaic of Wilkerson butte to the north, and ChemCam will shoot their laser at a rock in our workspace named “Carbon Canyon,” as well as three separate RMI mosaics! We’ll then attempt to drive until our time-of-day limit of about 15:00 local Gale time, hopefully getting us to a more stable spot on Wednesday for contact science. The second sol contains our usual dust-devil surveys with Navcam, atmospheric opacity measurements with Mastcam, and a blind LIBS on a piece of bedrock the rover chooses autonomously.
Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
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Last Updated Feb 11, 2025 Related Terms
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Sols 4389-4390: A Wealth of Ripples, Nodules and Veins
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image showing the patches and aggregations of darker-toned material in its workspace on Dec. 8, 2024. Curiosity acquired this image using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on sol 4387 — Martian day 4,387 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 17:44:17 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Earth planning date: Monday, Dec. 9, 2024
We are continuing to edge our way around the large “Texoli” butte. Much of the bedrock we have been traversing recently looks pretty similar — paler-colored laminated bedrock — but today’s workspace had some interesting features, as did the “drive direction” image, which focuses on the future drive path.
Close to the rover, we had a wealth of fractures and darker-toned patches. The fractures or veins were too far from the rover for contact science, but ChemCam LIBS was able to target one of the more prominent ones at “Garlock Fault.” Luckily for the contact science instruments (APXS and MAHLI), the darker patches were within reach of the arm. Some of the darker patches were flatter and platy in appearance, whilst others had a more amorphous, blobby shape. Both types come with their own challenges. The flatter ones collect dust on their flat surfaces, so ideally they would be brushed with the DRT (Dust Removal Tool) before we analyze them, but they are often too fragile-looking, and we worry that some of the layers might break off or flake off. The amorphous ones have irregular surfaces, which can collect sand and dust and make getting a good placement tricky.
However, today we were able to get both APXS and MAHLI on the flattest, most dust-free looking patch at “Cerro Negro.” We will be able to compare the composition of the darker patches and the Garlock Fault vein, and hopefully tease out their relationship.
Mastcam will take a small mosaic of Garlock Fault and then a larger mosaic on crosscutting veins at “Wildwood Canyon.” This was previously imaged, but from a different angle, so getting a second image will allow us to calculate the orientations on the fractures. Further afield, the “Forest Falls” mosaic looks at an area of dark, raised vein material.
Looking at the drive direction image, the sedimentologists were very excited to see what appear to be ripple features in the rocks ahead of us, which can tell us a lot about the depositional environment. The Mastcam mosaic “Hahamongna” will image the outcrop we are driving towards (about 30 meters from today’s workspace, or 98 feet), to give context for what we see when we get there. Mastcam will take a second smaller mosaic at “Malibu Creek” midway between where we are today and where we hope to be on Wednesday.
Looking even further into our future driving path, we will obtain Mastcam and ChemCam RMI images of the top of Mount Sharp and the yardang unit. We have a bit to go before we get there of course, but we will use those images to examine structural relationships and consider the evolution of both — we can test all those theories when we get there!
We round out the plan with environmental monitoring, as always …and wait eagerly for the next workspace on Wednesday, when we will get up close to those ripples, with luck!
Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick
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By European Space Agency
A pair of spacecraft were launched together today from India with the potential to change the nature of future space missions. ESA’s twin Proba-3 platforms will perform precise formation flying down to a single millimetre, as if they were one single giant spacecraft. To demonstrate their degree of control, the pair will produce artificial solar eclipses in orbit, giving prolonged views of the Sun’s ghostly surrounding atmosphere, the corona.
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By European Space Agency
ESA’s eclipse-making precise formation-flying mission is nearly ready for liftoff! Proba-3 is scheduled for launch on a PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Wednesday, 4 December, at 11:38 CET (10:38 GMT, 16:08 local time).
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