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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 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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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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By NASA
In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart).NASA On March 25, 2013, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo of the Great Sandy Desert in northwest Australia, showcasing linear dunes separated in a roughly regular fashion. When you fly over such dune fields—either in an airplane or the space station—the fire scars stand out. Where thin vegetation has been burned, the dunes appear red from the underlying sand; dunes appear darker where the vegetation remains.
Strings of narrow lakes that represent ancient rivers are also present in the region. The white feature down the center of the image is Lake Auld. The color is the result of a cemented combination of fine, clay-like sediment and salts from the evaporation of flood waters that occasionally fill the lake. Linear dunes can be seen entering Lake Auld on the east side. During flooding events, the sand of the dune noses is dispersed, becoming incorporated into the muds and salts of the lake floor sediments. During the long, intervening dry periods, sand can blow across the lake floor to build thinner, smaller dunes, visible as linear accumulations on the west side of the lake.
See more photos taken by astronauts.
Text credit: NASA/M. Justin Wilkinson
Image credit: NASA
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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 3 min read
Sols 4505-4506: Up, up and onto the Devil’s Gate
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4503 (2025-04-07 00:33:50 UTC). NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick
Earth planning date: Monday, April 7, 2025
Over the weekend, we completed our drive up the steep side of a canyon, up onto “Devil’s Gate,” a small butte which forms part of the ridge along the top of the canyon and now we can see down into the next canyon. It is always true that we are going somewhere no one has been before – that’s the idea of an exploratory mission after all, and everyone kind of gets used to it, we don’t stop to think about it. But today, coming over the top of a hill like this and fully looking for the first time into an area that we have only had glimpses of before, it really brings it home that the mission is doing something extraordinary, something out of this world …. and brings that feeling of awe back into focus.
We did not pass SRAP (Slip Risk Assessment Process) a couple of times as we climbed up the side of this canyon, meaning that the contact science instruments (APXS and MAHLI) had to stand down for that day’s planning. However, this morning, in addition to a brand new vista, we saw that all six wheels are firmly on the ground and we passed SRAP quickly this morning, which must have been a relief to the rover planner in charge of assessing it today! (no one wants to be the bearer of bad news, day after day!)
Bedrock here has both flat bedrock and amazing large nodular features, which appear to have “wind tails” caused by winds consistently blowing in the same direction. This is a Touch and Go plan, so APXS and MAHLI are focusing on a single target, the brushed “Coronado” target on the flat bedrock in front of us. ChemCam will use LIBS to investigate the nodular features at “La Cumbre Peak.”
Near the rover, Mastcam will image some small diagenetic features at “Boulder Oaks” and the LIBS target. The 3×2 (2 rows of 3 images) “La Jolla Valley” mosaic focuses on a very nodular patch, just outside of the workspace reachable by the arm. Further from the rover, the 6×2 mosaic (2 rows of 6 images) “Los Penasquitos” looks at an amazing almost vertical vein. This discontinuous vein stretches for about 6 meters (about 18 feet), with vein fins sticking above the surface at various points, like a series of shark fins breaking the bedrock surface. Much further afield, ChemCam will acquire a long distance image on “Condor Peak,” which appears to have large scale vein networks, known as “boxwork structures” and may be an early example of the boxworks we are hoping to reach in Fall 2025.
The ENV (Environmental and Atmospheric group) planned a Mastcam “tau” measurement, to look at dust in the atmosphere. There is a paired Navcam activity, looking at dust devils towards the north of the crater on the first sol and towards the south on the second sol. A suprahorizon movie and our usual DAN and REMS measurements round out this plan.
Let’s see what the next drive will reveal to us!
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