I was the Science Operations Working Group (SOWG) Chair last Friday when we planned to drill at the “Glasgow” target, so I was eagerly anticipating the images that would show us a new drill hole. Unfortunately, there’s no new drill hole to be seen. A minor issue with the MAHLI instrument caused the arm activities to stop prior to drilling. Today’s plan is focused on planning the drill again. I love the above Hazcam image which shows the shadow of the arm extended over the intended drill location, as if to say, “we will get you Glasgow!”

The first sol of today’s two-sol plan is devoted to drilling, and the second sol is packed with remote sensing activities. On the first sol, the drilling activities are accompanied by MAHLI and Mastcam documentation images. On the second sol, the remote sensing activities start with a Navcam dust devil movie and dust devil survey, and Navcam line-of-sight observation to monitor dust in the atmosphere. Then Mastcam will take a multispectral observation of the drill hole, followed by a Mastcam mosaic of a trough feature to document surface processes. ChemCam has a number of activities including observations of the bedrock targets “Marygold” and “Murra,” an RMI z-stack observation of the drill hole to help with future targeting, and a ChemCam pointing test. Mastcam will also document the ChemCam targets. Fingers crossed for a good day on Mars to see those new drill hole images!

To me, it seems like Curiosity was sitting on top of the Greenheugh pediment getting ready to drill “Edinburgh” just yesterday, and yet we’re already preparing to drill another rock in this weekend’s plan, a target we’ve named “Glasgow.” Combined with “Hutton,” these three drilled samples will give us a wonderful snapshot of the range of compositions of the three major geologic units we’ve explored in this region.

Wednesday’s pre-load test on Glasgow was successful, and even created a small divot where the drill tip pressed down onto the rock (visible in the center of the above image), which suggests this rock might be somewhat soft. The chemical data from ChemCam and APXS also were in family with other rocks in this area, so the team quickly decided we were go to continue with the full drill, which will execute in the second sol of the three-sol weekend plan. On the first sol of the plan, we will take Mastcam images of the rover’s deck, some sand-filled troughs in the area, and a mosaic to capture the view of nearby Tower Butte and Greenheugh pediment with a new perspective from our current location. We will also take some additional MAHLI images of areas in our workspace. The third sol of the plan has a lot of remote sensing, including Mastcam and Navcam environmental science observations, a Mastcam multispectral image and ChemCam passive spectral observation in the expected location of the drill tailings, a ChemCam z-stack of the expected drill hole, and ChemCam LIBS observations of an area near the drill spot, “Glasgow_2”, and “Canongate.”

Fingers crossed at least some socially-distant team members will be able to enjoy the traditional post-drill donut holes during planning on Monday morning!

Today the MSL team planned initial activities at the next planned drill site, "Glasgow." The plan for today is to gather science data about the site before drilling. This is very similar to what a field geologist on Earth would do. Before gathering a sample, geologists must first:

1. Determine what rock they want to sample,

2. Find the best location for sample collection, and

3. Record all relevant field observations/data in a standard field notebook.

Despite the closest human geologist being over 186 million kilometers (115 million miles) away, our curious little robotic geologist has all the tools necessary to do a similar assessment on Mars (with a little help from some humans on Earth). In the case of Curiosity's current drill campaign, we had already determined which rock type we wanted to sample for this drill campaign and identified and drove to the location where the best sample could be obtained. Now, since JPL decided to not send a good ol' fashioned pencil and field notebook to Mars (tsk! tsk!), we'll instead store our data in the onboard computer and then transmit it to Earth. That way those ever curious human geologists can "get their hands dirty" analyzing what will be a LOT of new data about our drill site!

So today ChemCam, APXS, and Mastcam are measuring the composition of the drill target Glasgow, and MAHLI is taking images of this target before and after removing dust in order to document the rock surface prior to drilling. ChemCam will also target "Dalmellington Burns," "George Square," and "Large Island" for additional geochemical context of the drill area while Mastcam documents each of these targets with beautiful images. APXS will also look to the sky to measure atmospheric chemistry. Additionally, Mastcam will take a 360° mosaic, REMS, DAN, and RAD will provide remote sensing measurements of the atmospheric and subsurface environment, and Navcam will search for atmospheric dust, clouds and dust devils. That should be enough data to satisfy any geologist!

The Curiosity rover is about 20 meters lower in elevation than its highest point near the “Edinburgh” drill hole. With the commands being uplinked today, the rover should arrive at the next candidate drill site. The purpose of this drill location is to sample the fractured intermediate unit, which is the last major (known) geological unit left to be sampled in the clay-bearing unit that Curiosity has been exploring over the last ~440 sols. The team has selected the name “Glasgow” for this candidate drill site. Glasgow is the name of the largest city in Scotland. For trivia buffs, this is to be the fourth drill site starting with a “G,” after “Greenhorn” (silica alteration site, Sol 1137) and “Glen Etive 1 and 2” (drilled earlier in the clay-bearing unit, sols 2486 and 2527).

Today we built a two-sol plan including a 4x4 ChemCam raster on target “Troon” and a 1x10 raster on “Buttery.” Mastcam will take images of those two targets as well as a follow-up image of the ChemCam AEGIS targets from the weekend, a 6x4 mosaic of the planned drill area, and a stereo 2x5 mosaic of target “Alpin.” MAHLI will get a full suite of images (25 cm, 5 cm stereo, and 2 cm) on “Troon.” A very short drive of ~4.5 meters is planned to arrive at the candidate drill site. There are DAN passive and active observations and post-drive imaging, including a MARDI observation. On the second sol, ChemCam will take a passive sky observation and will do several passive calibration activities. With that, we expect Curiosity to be set for the “Glasgow” drill campaign.

Our mini campaign on this section of the “Greenheugh pediment” and the rocks immediately below it (which ran over the past 85 sols) is coming to an end, and today we planned our last contact science here at the base of Tower Butte, on its western side. Our long term plan is to return to the pediment, but as orbital data indicates that we are unlikely to find any access points anytime soon, it may be at least several months before we get the chance to climb back up.

Today’s workspace (shown above) consists of a fragmented looking bedrock, with abundant thin white veins and raised ridges, crosscutting the bedrock. APXS and MAHLI are categorizing “typical” bedrock here, analyzing the target “Beefstand Hill” and hoping to avoid the veins! ChemCam and Mastcam, on the other hand, are looking at the variability here, likely caused by the veins, and are targeting three targets “Dysart,” “Corpach” and “Berwick upon Tweed,” in order to compare the “typical” with the “other.” A good example of Curiosity using all her instruments to get as much information as possible!

Our planned drive (roughly 40 metres) for this plan will bring us back into our investigation of the clay rich unit in the “Glen Torridon” region. We are searching for a suitable drill location, our sixth (!) as part of the Glen Torridon campaign. Our end of drive location will place us mid-way between Tower Butte and Western Butte.

The environmental theme group (ENV) planned several routine activities to monitor dust levels in the crater and atmosphere. The southern hemisphere of Mars (where Gale crater is located) is moving into its summer season. This means an increase in dust in the atmosphere, so dust storms and dust devils become more likely, and these background monitoring activities take on a new importance.

I will be APXS Strategic Planner next week and am looking forward to helping pick our next drill target in the Clay unit.

Curiosity is ready to drive again! The main activity in today’s two sol plan will be a ~65-meter drive to the north/north east that skirts nearby “Tower butte.” The drive will happen in the early afternoon of the first sol of the plan. Before the drive, we will collect a little more remote sensing data of the area around us, including ChemCam observations of targets named “Salen,” “Crossbill,” and “Burg,” as well as an RMI mosaic of an area named “Uphall.” Mastcam will image the ChemCam targets and also take pictures of the sun and crater rim, which will give the team information about current atmospheric conditions. All of the science on the second sol of the plan happens after the drive, so we will take untargeted observations that include a clast survey, ChemCam autonomously targeted observation using the AEGIS software, and Navcam images to further characterize the atmosphere and also search for dust devils.

It feels great to be hitting the Martian road once again, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s around the bend.

The plan for Sol 2740 and 2741 is focused on diagnosing the issue with MAHLI, but while we are sitting in one place, we will also collect plenty of remote sensing data of the area around the rover. On Sol 2740 MAHLI will close its dust cover while Mastcam takes a video, and then both Mastcam and Navcam will take some follow up images once the cover is closed. Once that is done, ChemCam will observe the targets “Beinn An Dudhaich,” “Peach,” and “Edina.” That will be followed by a bunch of atmospheric observations: Navcam will look at atmospheric dust toward the northern horizon and will then search for dust devil activity. Navcam will also take an “upper tier” mosaic to be able to see all of Mount Sharp. Mastcam will then also look toward the crater rim and at the sun to measure dust in the atmosphere. SAM will also make an atmospheric observation on Sol 2740.

Sol 2741 will start with another Navcam image to the north, followed by a 10 frame ChemCam RMI mosaic of part of the pediment cap called “Ogre Hill.” Mastcam will take a 3 frame mosaic of the same area, plus a 2-frame mosaic of the ChemCam LIBS targets from the previous sol. Finally, Navcam will take a 3 frame mosaic of the rover deck to see how dusty things are getting.

The MAHLI instrument is literally up in the air, as today’s blog image shows. There was an issue with MAHLI on sol 2735 that caused Curiosity’s arm motion to stop before the instrument was positioned on the rock target “Creig.” Before the issue occurred, Curiosity had used the Dust Removal Tool (DRT) to brush the target clean, as you can see by the circle on the rock near the bottom left of the image.

The good news is that the APXS instrument still acquired its data on sol 2735, even though the arm was pointing it up and away from the intended rock. This dataset can tell us about the chemical composition of Mars’ atmosphere, and we had been intending to collect this information in the near future anyway. Looks like Curiosity was just eager to study the atmospheric chemistry ahead of schedule!

The plan for this weekend, covering sols 2737-2739, focuses on diagnosing the issue with MAHLI. In addition, Curiosity will continue to explore the vicinity by taking Mastcam images of the Creig DRT spot, the outcrop in the foreground, the rover’s wheel tracks, the pediment behind the rover. Curiosity will also use the ChemCam instrument to study small-scale features in the outcrop, which is rife with veins and nodules: these targets are named “Beinn_an_Dudhaich,” “Beinn_Alligin,” “Beinn_Mhor,” “Ben_Arthur,” and “Ben_Wyvis.”

Once the issue with MAHLI is understood, Curiosity will resume driving northeast to the next area of interest.

Today’s blog image features a Hazard Camera image from many sols ago, sol 2659 or 29th January this year in Earth measures. At the time, we were heading uphill, with the steepest climb still ahead of us. My blogging-colleague Catherine had the same block with so many features to explore in her blog that she entitled "Heading for the Bench!" Look back at it and marvel at all the different structures, veins and nodules included. Tosol we are on our way back downhill, and we passed by the same area. As the time was pressing on our way up, we are now taking full advantage of a second serving of this piece of bedrock.

This was our Navcam view on sol 2734, the image was taken by the Navcam. You can compare it with the above image from a few weeks ago.

First, the APXS instrument will study which elements are present in the bedrock. Back on sol 2659 there was only time for a "touch and go" measurement, which are naturally of lower statistical quality than longer overnight integrations and do not allow us to brush the dust off before. The MAHLI camera on the end of the robotic arm will document the measured area after we brush dust off this spot with our DRT tool. Thus, tosol the target "Creig" will be an overnight APXS measurement after DRT of the area, improving the statistics on APXS bedrock measurements at this exciting location. ChemCam did get many bedrock points on the way up, for which reason the team focuses the instrument on the other features in the scene: documenting the workspace with a mosaic that includes all the activities by the chemistry experiments.

The environmental working group has their standard sequence of observations, which include Navcam line of sight, a dust devil movie, crater rim extinction, a dust devil movie and basic tau. This is especially important at this time of the year, since it is about now that the last big dust storm started. DAN, the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument that measures hydrogen and chlorine, is in the plan, too, in active and passive mode.

Finally, Curiosity is going on a long roll – driving all the way into the valley between the buttes to our next area of interest. Stay tuned to see the buttes from the bottom of the valley again after our exciting climb onto and decent from the high place!

As the team built today’s plan on Earth, Curiosity was busy on Mars wrapping up the analysis of the nodular bedrock target “Adder” which was planned yesterday. After Curiosity completes the Adder analysis, she will do a slight turn to place her high gain antenna in a better position for Earth to send her today’s plan. However, because we have to send Curiosity today’s plan before we know that the turn was successful, we are planning on faith that she will be ready to receive our commands. This and the fact that we are only planning one sol today meant that we kept today’s plan simple. ChemCam will collect calibration data from their calibration targets and Navcam will acquire a dust devil movie. Using imaging from previous sols, we were also able to plan the drive that will take us off the sandstones of the “Greenheugh pediment” and back down toward the mudstones of the clay-bearing “Glen Torridon” region. Our time on the pediment was very successful, and looking back downhill at the tracks we dug getting up onto the pediment makes the time we got to spend there all the sweeter. Pouring over the dozens of Mastcam and ChemCam mosaics we acquired while up on the pediment will keep the science team busy as we guide Curiosity through the next leg of her journey in Gale crater!