Today was another day of fascinating science at the 8th International Conference on Mars! The theme

today was The first billion years and I was struck with the growing number of people suggesting that

Mars was never particularly warm or wet in its past. Bob Haberle gave a nice summary of the challenges

in coming up with a plausible way to get a thick enough atmosphere on early Mars for warm and wet

conditions, concluding that nobody has really figured out a way to do it despite decades of work on

the topic. There was a lot of discussion of the icy highlands hypothesis for the climate of early Mars,

which suggests that ice on Mars should be trapped at high elevations (in much the same way that snow

collects on the peaks of high mountains on Earth) and that rare melting of that ice caused the formation

of the water-related features that are observed on Mars. This is far from the only possibility though, and

the day was full of a lot of interesting discussion, trying to bring together the various lines of evidence to

figure out what Mars was like during its first billion years.


Curiosity completed a short 9.6 meter drive on sol 689 as expected. For Sol 690 uplink, there was limited

time for science but the team managed to fit a ChemCam observation of the target Reed before the

drive.


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

Many of the scientists on the MSL team are attending the 8th International Mars Science Conference this week on the Caltech campus in Pasadena. I was pleased to see that 2 of the first 3 speakers were USGS Astrogeology colleagues: The first speaker, Ken Tanaka, introduced the new global geologic map of Mars that was included in the packet of materials handed out to each registered attendee. Ken led the major mapping effort that culminated in the publication of this map , and received well-deserved applause when he presented it to the audience. The third speaker, Oleg Abramov, showed the results of his detailed modeling of the effects of impact bombardment on the early history of Mars, concluding that the crust of the planet was probably not completely melted, leaving open the possibility of habitable environments during that violent time.


With all this going on, I wasn't able to keep up with MSL operations, but my review of the latest project reports shows that the rover drove over 82 meters last weekend. The Sol 689 drive will be more limited because the terrain ahead is rough.


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

Today we received data from sol 685, showing that we drove 60.4 meters, and the rover is busy doing

its sol 686 activities right now. Today we are planning sols 687 and 688 to cover the weekend (Sunday is

a soliday , which is a day without planning to allow Earth and Mars schedules to sync back up). We’re

trying something special in the sol 687 plan: MAHLI is going to capture a picture of the plasma plume

generated when ChemCam zaps a rock! Because of the low atmospheric pressure on Mars, the spark of

plasma generated when ChemCam’s laser zaps a rock is larger and brighter than it would be on Earth.

This is a complicated activity that has required lots of pre-planning but hopefully it will show a nice

bright spark. After ChemCam zaps the rock (dubbed Nova ), and MAHLI catches it in the act, we will

take advantage of the fact that the rover’s arm is already out and place the APXS on the rock to do an

overnight integration. Then, on sol 688, we will do another drive.


Meanwhile, most of the Mars scientists on the team are getting ready to head to the 8th International Conference on Mars next week (it’s actually in Pasadena, California, not on Mars). The rover will be

doing rapid traverse sols next week so the plans will be light on science and focused on driving. Your

blogging team will also be in Pasadena, so we won’t be able to do our daily Curiosity updates here, but

we will try to put up a few brief posts about some of the interesting Mars science at the conference!

Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

The sol 683 drive was cut a bit short because the rover yaw exceeded the specified limits for the drive,

which is a fancy way of saying that the rover steered away from its planned route to avoid an obstacle.

The rover drivers tell the rover to stop when a drive deviates too far from the planned direction so

that they can check and make sure everything is ok. The good news is: the rover is healthy and we’re

planning another drive on sol 685. Before we drive, we will do a quick Mastcam observation of the sun

and a ChemCam passive sky observation. After the drive we will do our standard post-drive imaging.

Then, on sol 686 we will do a blind ChemCam observation with an accompanying Mastcam image. (We

can’t drive on sol 686 because we don’t know how the sol 685 drive went).


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

Today we are planning Sol 685, which includes a short pre-drive science block, 2.5 hours of driving, and some post-drive imaging for targeting. The pre-drive science block contains some environmental monitoring including ChemCam passive spectroscopy of atmospheric composition and a Mastcam measurement of atmospheric dust opacity. Since we are still driving through a lot of loose sand, we expect that the drive will cover a distance of ~60 m. Once we get through this area of ripples we’ll drive up onto the Zabriskie Plateau, named after a sandstone near Shoshone, California. Tomorrow will be another restricted sol as we wait for data to come down, and then we’re looking forward to possible contact science and more driving over the weekend!


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

On Sol 683 Curiosity drove across a ripple to see how the vehicle performs in the loose sand. Today we are planning Sol 684, which is a restricted sol (meaning we don’t have all of the data down from 683 in order to plan another drive), and it’s also a very constrained sol in terms of available power. So it will be a light sol in terms of science (only some data management activities and standard environmental monitoring), but this way we’ll be able to have more time for science and driving in the Sol 685 plan. So we’ll recharge today and look forward to another long drive tomorrow!


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

The imaging of the rover wheels went well last weekend, and we are ready to drive again on Sol 683. After taking a couple Mastcam mosaics of targets Tecopa and Billie, the rover will drive across one of the nearby ripples and take a lot of Hazcam and Navcam images to see how the vehicle performs in the loose sand.
Analysis of the data acquired during this ripple driving test will be useful in future traverse planning. I'm MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, planning the usual post-drive MAHLI stowed image and MARDI twilight image


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

The sol 678 drive was successful! We traversed 66.5 meters, ending our drive right were we expected near some picturesque wind-blown ripples. Looking at these ripples in orbital HiRISE images , you might think they were big sand dunes, but in truth they aren’t very tall at all.


On sol 679, we have some Mastcam observations of the ripples and a drive direction Mastcam mosaic, followed by MAHLI imaging of the wheels. The rest of the weekend, the rover will be in a planned runout mode, where it automatically executes a set of simple commands, allowing the team to enjoy the 4th of July weekend. RAD and REMS will continue their environmental monitoring during the runout, but the other science instruments will be off. Curiosity will be ready and waiting to do more driving and science on Monday!


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

The Sol 677 drive was stopped after almost 20 meters (out of 57 m planned) by the autonomous navigation software, when it detected an obstacle more than 20 cm high. But the rover is healthy and acquired the post-drive data as planned, including Navcam images showing the rover tracks into the ripples where it got stuck, then backed out and around them. The Sol 677 post-drive data did not arrive until almost 14:00 Pacific time, so Sol 678 is being planned on the rapid-traverse timeline. Before the drive, Mastcam images of targets Tin Mountain , Ryan , and Argenta will be acquired.


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

The Sol 676 drive halted after about 16 meters of progress (out of ~39 m planned) because the rover's yaw diverged too much from the commanded heading. Otherwise, all activities completed as planned and the rover is healthy. So another rapid-traverse drive is planned for Sol 677, preceded by ChemCam and Mastcam observations of a bright linear feature dubbed Worldbeater along the edge of the rock outcrop to the left of center in this Navcam image .


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.