Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada pointed out a great fact at the beginning of planning today: At around 4 o’clock in the afternoon on Sol 3199 (the first sol in the plan we are creating today), Curiosity will begin its 10^th Earth year on Mars. In the last nine years, the rover has traveled 26.3 km, climbed over 460 m in elevation, and collected 32 drilled samples of rock. It’s been a terrific journey so far, and it’s fun think back to those first images we saw on sol 0 of the mission. The terrain in our landing area was quite different than the rocks we’re examining now, and it’s amazing to think we’ve climbed so high on the flanks of Mt. Sharp, which loomed in the distance in that first Hazcam image!

Curiosity will spend its ninth landiversary (landing anniversary) continuing to study the fascinating rocks in this transitional area. We will collect APXS and MAHLI data of a nodular target in front of the rover named “Gabillous,” and a ChemCam LIBS observation of another nodule named “Champs Romain.” Mastcam will peer off to the hills ahead, taking stereo mosaics to study their bedding geometry and a multispectral observation to document their spectral properties. After a morning of science, Curiosity will hit the road, driving ~14 m along our strategically planned route. This is an usually short drive for a day like today, and it’s because the terrain is so rocky that it’s hard to see too far beyond the rover’s current position. We don’t want to use too much autonomous driving in this rocky terrain and risk damaging the wheels. Despite the short drive, we should end up at a great looking outcrop and be prepared for more contact science this weekend, which we’ll plan on Friday.

We have recently done a full MAHLI wheel imaging, and the image I choose today is one of the wheels in full sunshine. You can just about make up the bedrock and some of the nodules I talk about under the wheel. It's always good to see our hardware!

This two-sol plan focuses on what geologists call nodules, little rounded things that stick out of the surrounding rock because they are just a little bit more resistant to weathering than the rock itself. The term nodule thereby does not say anything about how they formed, it’s just a description of what you see in the images.

Curiosity is parked in an area that has lots of those nodules. Consequently, APXS is looking at target "Vendoire" in the workspace, and that target has lots of these nodules. ChemCam is joining the effort, trying to hit some of the nodules also imaged by a Mastcam multispectral observation, but they are tiny, so, fingers crossed. Always remember, we are trying to hit something of the size of a dime or smaller at a distance from about 3 metres or more. Let’s see what target "Beleymas" brings, but we are confident to at least hit some!

ChemCam is also looking into the distance, where we have spotted an outcrop where there are changes in the textures – the upper part of the outcrop looks smoother from our vantage point than the lower part. What’s better than getting close by pointing the remote imager at it? That will help us decide what might be behind the patterns in the current images. Mastcam is joining the distance-imaging and adding colour to the ChemCam images, as well as looking right in front of the rover to support the nodule investigations and a butte in the "Sands of Forvie" area. It is collecting two multispectral observation in support of the nodule observation on targets "Baneuil" and the above named target "Beleymas."

After all this science there is a drive, more imaging, and some more science. The imaging is mostly to get the data needed for the next planning, but also a little science as we are also getting an image for our regular clast survey. ChemCam will perform an AEGIS observation, where it looks for its own target after the drive. Those investigations add important capabilities to our plans as they allow us to use ChemCam LIBS before we here on Earth have seen the new parking space. It’s an interesting area, especially for me as a mineralogist, as all those nodules usually also mean chemical and mineralogical changes. Well, we’ll soon find out!

We are continuing our traverse towards Mount Sharp and are passing through an area of more resistant buttes or mesas, some of which can be seen in the image above, and the larger Rafael Navarro Mountain. The spectacular scenery is providing our camera teams with some incredible images to focus on, which will be used to help interpret the origin of these buttes.

Our recent workspaces have been amazing too, with unusual textures, abundant nodules, and dark and white veins. Today’s workspace was no exception with a wealth of interesting features, just waiting to be analyzed and understood by us Earthlings. However, just like on Earth, we had to dedicate parts of our usual weekend science time to doing some housekeeping – a series of routine checks on rover and instrument health. APXS will analyse their calibration target, and MAHLI and Mastcam will take images of the rover wheels. The wheel imaging is a periodic, routine measurement, taken every 1000 metres, to document the health of the wheels and to flag any issues. This takes a lot of resources, as the rover adjusts its position four times to give Mastcam and MAHLI better access to each of the wheels. At least this housekeeping activity is more fun than those many of us will be undertaking this weekend!

As a result, we had less time to spend doing science activities and had to pick our targets carefully today. APXS and MAHLI will analyze a rough bedrock target "Bregout" here, whilst ChemCam and Mastcam will analyse some erosion resistant nodules ("Valeuil") and a dark grey fin or layer of material, which looks different to the bedrock below ("Limeuil.") ENV will continue its monitoring of the environment, with tau measurements (measuring dust in the atmosphere around us) and a series of dust devil movies, which aim to capture dust devils in the distance. Before we leave this spot, Mastcam will take more images of the buttes around us. Then we drive onwards, through the buttes, in search of more discoveries!

Curiosity is continuing to climb through an area where orbital data show the layers of Mount Sharp are transitioning from clay-bearing to sulfate-bearing. I continue to be dazzled by the textures we’re seeing, especially the prevalence of centimeter sized bumps and lumps poking out of the bedrock. We captured a particularly whimsical image of an interesting rock texture in a ChemCam RMI image yestersol, shown above. The whole field of view is about 16.5 cm across, so this is a very tiny feature!

Our plans for sols 3192 and 3193 include contact science, remote sensing, and driving. We’ll observe a nodular bedrock target named "Champeaux" with APXS and MAHLI first thing in the morning on sol 3192. Then we’ll capture Mastcam and ChemCam RMI mosaics of some of the scenic terrain surrounding Curiosity, a ChemCam LIBS observation of “Manaurie,” and additional Mastcam images of surrounding outcrops. After wrapping up science at this site, we’ll drive along our strategic route up Mount Sharp and spend the second sol of the plan collecting observations that monitor the environment. We’ll also acquire a ChemCam autonomously selected AEGIS observation.

Our weekend drive completed successfully, landing us north of a ~15 m tall butte that we had imaged the east side of over the weekend. The new parking position gave us a new angle on the butte. Seeing structures from multiple angles helps geologists unravel the story of their formation by revealing their layers in three dimensions. The challenge of today’s plan was that the large Mastcam mosaic we wanted to acquire of the butte was best taken early in the day, before the butte began to cover itself in its own shadow, and this window of time overlapped the best time to acquire APXS data before our drive. Rather than having to pit APXS against Mastcam, we were allowed to try something relatively unusual. Typically, when we analyze a target with APXS before a drive, we acquire MAHLI images of the same target immediately after APXS is done. Today, we broke up APXS and MAHLI, putting the desired Mastcam imaging and other remote science observations after APXS. MAHLI was then scheduled after the remote observations, but before the drive. This allowed all the observations to occur at times that would benefit them - wins all around!

APXS and MAHLI will analyze a patch of relatively smooth bedrock, "Fressignas," to systematically record bedrock chemistry as we climb up Mount Sharp. In addition to the large butte mosaic, Mastcam acquired a small mosaic of a bedrock slab right of the rover (image above), dubbed "Creysse," which exhibited a combination of lineations and resistant features that added to the variety of textures we have seen over the last several weeks. ChemCam acquired a small RMI mosaic of yet another wonderful structure, "Mescoules," a delicate arch of rock that appeared to be made of a concentration of the resistant nodules so common in the local bedrock. ChemCam will analyze the chemistry of a linear horizon of resistant nodules at the target "Loubejac" to continue our investigation of what makes these nodules stand out from the bedrock that hosts them.

After a drive that we hope will be extended in distance by Curiosity’s autonomous navigation capabilities, ChemCam will acquire chemistry from an autonomously-selected target, and we will turn our attention to the atmosphere. APXS will acquire a measurement of argon in the Mars atmosphere, Navcam and Mastcam will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and Navcam will shoot a movie in search of dust devils. These dedicated atmospheric observations take place over a background of regular RAD, REMS, and DAN measurements that keep their finger on the pulse of the Gale crater environment.

The Sol 3185 drive went well, placing the rover near a low, linear ridge shown in the lower left part of the above image. This ridge attracted the attention of the tactical science team so several observations of it are included in the 3-sol weekend plan, starting with a ChemCam LIBS raster on a dark, rough target named "Chalagnac" and a Mastcam 5x2 stereo mosaic of the area surrounding Chalagnac. Mastcam will also take a 5x1 stereo mosaic of a nearby trough before the arm activities begin. The DRT will be used to brush dust off a bedrock target dubbed "Chauffour" and ChemCam's RMI will be used to take pictures of the drill bit to look for changes. MAHLI will then take full suites of images of Chauffour and a nearby darker target called "Le Manet," then the APXS will be placed on Le Manet for an evening integration and on Chauffour for a longer overnight integration. The resulting data should be useful in measuring differences in the chemical composition of these targets.

On the second sol, Mastcam will acquire a big stereo mosaic of a butte to the west of the rover, then ChemCam will fire its laser at a bedrock target named "Campsegret" and acquire a 10x1 RMI mosaic of layering exposed in a cliff face toward the south. Mastcam will then take a documentation image of the Campsegret laser spots, a multispectral observation of the Chauffour brushed spot, and measure the dust in the atmosphere above the rover by imaging the Sun. Navcam will then search for dust devils and clouds and measure the dust opacity within Gale Crater. A drive toward the southwest is then planned, followed by the standard post-drive imaging of the terrain surrounding new rover location.

The third sol begins with a ChemCam LIBS observation of an autonomously-selected target and a CheMin maintenance activity. Later that afternoon, Mastcam will acquire a 13x2 stereo mosaic of a butte toward the southeast of the expected post-drive location and Navcam will survey the sky. Early in the morning of Sol 3190, Navcam will again search for clouds and Mastcam will again measure the dust in the atmosphere above the rover and across Gale Crater. Another busy weekend for our intrepid explorer!

On Monday, blogger Melissa mentioned an unexpected scuff in the soft drill fines, presumably made by APXS. We had not planned to make contact, so Mastcam took some images in Monday’s plan to make sure that APXS was in good health. The image above shows the APXS sensor head, looking healthy, if a little dusty – that is what almost nine (!!) years of hard work will do for you!

Today's plan was a typical “Touch and Go” plan, where we do some early morning analysis on the workspace in front of us, followed by a drive to the next location. Our drive from Monday’s plan came up a little short of where we had planned to be, but fortunately brought us to a beautiful workspace, filled with elongated raised features, crosscut by a series of white vein features perpendicular to the raised features. It’s a really interesting pattern, very evenly spaced out.

As APXS science planner today, I was happy to see that some of the linear features were reachable by APXS and MAHLI. We picked a relatively flat appearing target and a name (“Javerlhac”) and thought we were set up for some nice science. Unfortunately, towards the end of planning, we realised that the topography was not quite as flat as it appeared in the workspace images, and not as suitable for APXS, so we had to make the tough call to pull it.

Pulling an activity at the last minute is definitely not ideal. The plans we send up to Curiosity are always jam packed, with every minute accounted for. Some days, we spend long hours finessing plans just to gain a couple of minutes, and removing this short APXS meant that about 35 minutes of time were now not being used. No one likes to waste time on Mars, so the GEO theme group had to pivot quickly, scrambling to take advantage of the extra time. MAHLI decided to continue with the plan to image Javerlhac. Mastcam expanded images in the workspace, including Javerlhac, and added multispectral images of the ChemCam LIBS target "Rampieux" and of a target “Prats de Carlux” just outside of the workspace.

Once our early morning science goals are met, we will drive onwards. Our current driving path takes us close to and then between a series of buttes (similar to mesas). Some environmental activities round out the plan, monitoring dust in the atmosphere, and looking for dust devils.

The science team is dealing with a pressing situation today – quite literally! In the MAHLI image above, you can see a flat, smooth region in middle of the Pontours dump pile, where it looks like something pressed into the loose, fine-grained material. What caused this mark is a mystery; although Curiosity’s arm instruments investigated the dump pile last week, neither MAHLI nor APXS were supposed to come into direct contact with the surface. One possibility is that dump pile was taller than expected, and so APXS could have pressed slightly into the material, even though it was expected to just hover above the surface. In case that’s what happened, the team today planned for Mastcam to take images of the arm and APXS on sol 3183, to make sure none of the material got stuck to the instrument.

The mystery is not so pressing as to delay Curiosity from continuing on her journey. Sol 3183 has the rover leaving the Pontours drill site, continuing to drive uphill amidst the towering hills of Mount Sharp. Before driving, Curiosity will make some final investigations of the Pontours vicinity, including APXS and MAHLI observations of "Montagenet" (a dark-toned surface coating), a ChemCam observation of "Montagrier" (a dark-toned, thin blade of rock), and long-distance RMI observations of the bedding in the hills at "Le Coly" and on Rafael Navarro Mountain. On sol 3184, Curiosity will make an automated AEGIS ChemCam observation and complete several atmospheric monitoring activities.

As with all 3-sol plans we prepare on Fridays, we packed today's plan with activities to make sure that Curiosity has plenty to do over the weekend! Curiosity is wrapping up her most recent drill campaign on "Pontours" while thoroughly documenting her surroundings.

As you will tell from the number of target names in this blog, this plan was packed! Picking the names for the targets is an aspect of planning that I always look forward to – in between planning these activities, we also learn a lot about the locations on Earth from which these names originate.

Over the weekend we will be completing the drill campaign by collecting MAHLI, APXS, and Mastcam multispectral observations of the dumped sample to document its texture and composition. We will also be taking a closer look at a nodule called "Chanterac" (image linked above) using MAHLI and APXS; these observations will use a rastering technique which will help us deconvolve signals from the nodule versus signals from the bedrock.

Other observations include Mastcam and/or Supercam on: "Bouzic," a cluster of dark rock fragments; "Ponteyraud" and "Bussiere Galant," two areas with nodules and other alteration textures; and "La Jemaye," an example of less-altered bedrock to contrast with the diagenetic observations. We will also acquire two mosaics on targets "Tremolat" and "Villetoureix," which are rocks peppered with abundant diagenetic features, and on "Lolme," a trough filled with sand. Atmospheric activities spread throughout the weekend include numerous Navcam observations and a dust devil survey and movie, as well as a ChemCam passive sky and Mastcam full tau observations.

'We are expecting to hear from them at 11 am' – well, that was said at 5 pm local time for me, serving as GeoSTL today. Our little discussion about 'whose 11 am' we were talking about is once more a reminder how our international team is spread across our home planet! In today’s planning, like on most planning days, we are spread as far as from Pasadena in California, where JPL - our home base - is, to France, where many ChemCam team members are operating from, with many SAM team members at the East coast of the US, and your today’s blogger in the UK somewhere in between. That’s a spread from Pacific daylight time to Central European summer time, in other words 9 time zones… and of course it was 11 am in Pasadena that we were talking about! But, back to Mars, where we are planning the activities for two sols today, luckily all in one time zone, and only with the orbiter timescales for uplinks and downlinks to consider.

APXS and MAHLI will start the day looking at the drill fines of the "Pontours" drill hole. Check out Lucy’s blog from sols 3171-3172 for more details. As Lucy said, it’s our 32^nd drill hole – and sitting in an exciting and very interesting looking area.

Around the drill site, we have spotted many different textures and colours; and as we know from being on Mars for over 3100 sols now, different colours and textures may mean interesting discoveries. Therefore, we have decided for Curiosity to investigate the more reddish features spotted on a rock close to the rover with ChemCam, investigating a target called "Belcayre." There are also darker features on the same rock, which Curiosity will have ChemCam target "La Bastide" on. Mastcam is targeting "La Bastide" as well, adding multispectral information to the dataset. Mastcam is also targeting "Lempzours," which is a resistant feature in the distance. The mosaic will expand an existing mosaic to give us even more information on the many textures in this scene. Make sure to check out the raw images section, especially if you are interested in rock textures.