Every day or two, scientists and engineers on the rover team hop on the phone together to participate in a set of teleconferences (telecons). These virtual meetings are an essential part of the mission’s infrastructure and provide a way for the team to remotely discuss and plan the rover’s activities while being spread across many different parts of the country – and world!

Today, the phone line was a bit quieter than usual as many traded in our virtual conference for the annual American Geophysical Union conference (AGU), which is happening all this week in San Francisco. Scientific conferences are an important and useful way for us to share our research with others in the field and beyond, thus increasing the mission's overall reach. Cumulatively, the rover team submitted more than thirty abstracts to the meeting this year.

Those of us not attending AGU today called into our usual meetings ready to plan two sols of rover activities with a drive in the middle. An early discussion between rover planners and the science team led to a decision to shorten the drive distance, which afforded us more time for observations during the first sol’s science block. Making this kind of major change to the plan in real-time would not be possible without our team telecons, which allow for quick and easy communication between different facets of the team.

Once the science block time was extended, the science team set to working filling it with observations of the butte outcrop in our workspace (shown in the Navcam image above). Three ChemCam targets were selected on the outcrop (“Ghrudaidh,” “Glasnakille,” and “Glenshee”) and two Mastcam mosaics will provide context for the other observations. A Mastcam multispectral observation was planned for an anomalously bright target, “Glen Nevis.” Before the drive, MAHLI and APXS will also be used to collect data on target “Glenmard Wood;” after the drive, an additional Mastcam mosaic of the new workspace will be acquired. On the second sol, we planned a 2-hour untargeted science block that will contain a ChemCam AEGIS observation and 25 minutes of environmental activities including REMS and DAN measurements.

Wishing all of our colleagues good luck on their AGU presentations and looking forward to hearing their voices back on the phone line next week!

In a sedimentary environment, the principle of “superposition” specifies that lower rock layers were deposited earlier than the layers above them. In other words, time effectively moves forward when traversing “up-section” (traversing to higher rock layers). That’s the direction that Curiosity has been moving, having traveled nearly 400 meters upwards from its landing site, so the rover is exploring rocks laid down more and more recently, though still a long time ago. Sometimes the rock record has an abrupt change due to missing rock layers that weathered or washed away before the next rock layer was deposited. The abrupt change in rock layers is called an unconformity. Curiosity observed a prominent unconformity earlier in the mission (in 2016) at and near Murray Buttes, which consist of sandstone made from sand that originally accumulated in the form of dunes. Murray Buttes, part of the Stimson formation, were deposited on top of flat-lying layers that were laid down in a lake. After the lake disappeared, the lacustrine layers were eroded down and then the sandstone of the buttes was deposited on top of the eroded layers. We do not know how much time passed between the lake era and the appearance, and eventual lithification (solidification) of the dune material.

Curiosity is approaching another unconformity—or maybe it is a distant part of the same one. A large sloping surface called Greenheugh pediment looms ahead, past Western Butte. Its surface, and the unconformity just below it, can be seen in the upper left of this image. Part of the exploration of Central and Western buttes is to determine their relationship to the unconformity.

In today’s plan APXS, MAHLI, and ChemCam will be observing “Renfrewshire,” which is a knobbly bedrock. MAHLI’s images of that target consist of 5 cm stereo images as well as a 25 cm image. MAHLI will also take three images of “Tillietudlem” at 15 cm distance. ChemCam will do two more 10x1 LIBS line scans of “Barns Ness” (another knobbly bedrock) and “Bearreraig” (a dark area along a potential fracture). ChemCam will finish up with a single RMI image of “Ardvreck” to study its sedimentary structure. Mastcam will take a 9x2 mosaic to document these targets, a multispectral image of “Glen Trool” (bright area under the butte’s capping unit), and an 11x2 mosaic of Western Butte. Near the end of the day, there is a drive planned for 45 meters, with post-drive images by Navcam, Mastcam, and MARDI.

On the second sol of this plan, ChemCam will do an AEGIS autonomous target selection and observation at the new rover location. There will be a 20 minute DAN active observation, a dust devil survey, a crater rim extinction image, and daytime and sunset tau observations. There is also a DAN passive observation and REMS and RAD will take data. Early on the morning of the third sol, the rover team is planning a SAM scrubber cleaning activity that takes several hours; it is being done to prepare for upcoming SAM analyses.

​In Germany, children polish their shoes in the evening of the 5th of December to find them filled with treats of the season on the morning of Saint Nicholas day. I think, Curiosity must have polished her wheels nicely for Saint Nicholas day … and we got treated here on Earth! The rich workspace included bedrock, pebbly areas and a brighter float rock of a kind which has been observed frequently in the vicinity. Thus, lots of variety – and a three-sol plan to fill.

Today’s plan made good use of the rock variety in the workspace. APXS will investigate two targets, “Scotnish” is a target which will be measured overnight after DRT of the area. “Gretna Green” is a touch and go target measured in standoff mode, because it is a small brighter float rock. It will be interesting to see how the difference in colour – mainly albedo – translates to chemistry. MAHLI is documenting the same rocks as APXS, and in addition will image “Smiddyhill” in dogs eye mode to get up close with the sedimentary textures. The scientists back on Earth are eagerly waiting to have a look at those images to understand the depositional conditions and also to correlate the rocks between the current investigations area at Western Butte.

ChemCam is busy with three targets. First, it is also investigating Gretna Green, and then adds a bedrock target named “Skaill” and a pebbly target called “Stoneypath” to its repertoire.

Mastcam adds to the feast with several large mosaics, looking at the pediment ahead, an area close to the rover for sand ripple studies and a target called “White Hills” for more sedimentary studies. There are also two multispectral investigations and the documentation of the ChemCam targets in Mastcam’s plan.

This will keep Curiosity busy over the weekend, and on Monday we will study those images and data to correlate them with previous investigations, and looking forward to the top of the butte. Talking of looking forward: The planned drive is designed to get a block of rock into the workspace, which the planning team anticipates could allow us correlations not only around Western Butte, but also to Central Butte. Happy weekend, Curiosity!

​Today’s science team faced some tough decisions during today’s planning. The geologists had to choose between investigating a plethora of interesting rock targets in the workspace, as seen in this Navcam image, or limit the observations at this location in favor of continuing to drive uphill to get a better view of Western Butte. After some discussion, it was decided to perform a “touch-and-go,” where we use the arm to study rock targets “Staxigoe” and “Totegan” with APXS and MAHLI, perform some additional remote sensing science with Mastcam and ChemCam, and then drive during the mid-afternoon.

I served as environmental science theme group lead today and in addition to our routine observations with REMS and DAN, we included Mastcam observations of atmospheric dust opacity (how much dust is in the atmosphere above us) and a Navcam movie to observe water ice clouds. This Navcam movie uses some clever geometry to calculate the height of clouds above the surface based on the shadows they cast on Mt. Sharp. We’re currently in the colder, cloudy winter season on Mars and will be for months to come!

Today we had a 2-sol plan, though we are restricted, and so doing all our arm and drive activities on the first sol. As part of our standard cadence, we are doing MAHLI and APXS on a target named “Well Run” so that we can compare the compositions of the Western Butte with what we saw at the Central Butte. After stowing the arm, we have a science block with a survey of local rocks with ChemCam and Mastcam. Then we are driving to another laminated block about 15 m away with the intent to do contact science. After the drive, and before we do our post-drive arm unstow and post-drive imaging, we are doing a sun update to reset the rover’s attitude estimate, which keeps our ability to point back at Earth. On the second sol of the plan we are doing some AEGIS observations (can’t wait to see what AEGIS picks to look at!) and some standard environmental observations – dust devil survey and movie and a Navcam line-of-sight observation to look at the atmospheric opacity.

Curiosity will be gorging on a feast of data this holiday weekend! We plan to acquire over 12,000 Mb of data in the four sols covering the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, which could be a new record for the mission. The rover will be stuffed, and us scientists will be digesting the results for months to come.

The main dish is an enormous color image mosaic. To capture the full 360 degrees of terrain surrounding the rover, Curiosity will take 850 individual images with each of its Mastcam cameras. It will take roughly eight hours to capture all of those images, so to spread out the work over multiple sols, we have divided the full scene into four segments. We will capture each segment around local noon so that the lighting will be consistent, which will make it easier to stitch all of the individual pieces together into a seamless panoramic image. We included the first segment in the previous plan for sols 2597-2599, and this weekend we will capture the last three segments. The final product will be a sight to behold: a gigapixel stereo image of dramatic desert landscape, with buttes of crumbling sandstone in the foreground and Mt. Sharp towering in the distance.

Side dishes at Curiosity’s feast include Navcam images looking towards the horizon to search for dust devils, and close-up investigations of two rock targets using the MAHLI and APXS instruments: one named “Inverurie” with a rough texture, and another named “Latheron” with a smoother, layered texture. On sol 2602, Curiosity will drive closer to the base of Western Butte. Then for dessert, we will use the APXS instrument overnight to monitor the concentration of argon in Mars’ atmosphere. After such an overindulgence, on sol 2603 Curiosity will do the rover equivalent of laying comatose on the couch: a full sol of sitting still and monitoring the weather with the REMS instrument.

We have quite a lot to be thankful for this holiday weekend! November 26 marks the eight-year anniversary of Curiosity’s launch in 2011. After more than seven years of exploring Mars, our rover is still strong and healthy and the views just keep getting better.

We arrived at our parking spot for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, and Mars gave us plenty to be grateful for in and around the workspace. Each bedrock slab in the workspace seems to have something different to offer, "Western Butte" looms just 25 meters off to rover left, and dark sand ripples lap up against the small rise we are perched on. It is an ideal spot at which to spend some quality time. We start off the plan by acquiring the first of part of a 360° panorama that we will accumulate in four parts over the Thanksgiving holiday. Normally, we collect our 360° mosaics with the wider field of view Mastcam left eye. This time, we will capture the 360° mosaic using the left eye and the narrower field of view Mastcam right eye. This will result in a ripe-for-zooming-in stereo mosaic that includes our recent focus of exploration, “Central Butte,” and the clay-bearing unit, "Vera Rubin Ridge," the "Greenheugh pediment," the distant Gale crater rim, and (looming above all) Mount Sharp.

Through the rest of this three sol plan, our focus falls slightly closer to the rover than the surrounding vista. We will brush the target “Everbay,” which has a polygonal fracture pattern, with the DRT and follow up with MAHLI imaging and an APXS analysis. MAHLI will also image the targets “Carlops” and “Inverurie,” bedrock targets with different textures than Everbay, to help plan more detailed investigation of these targets with MAHLI and APXS in the next plan. ChemCam will shoot Everbay, Inverurie, “Latheron” (yet another variety of bedrock texture!), and “Fidra,” whose vertical face (visible in the upper left corner of the above image) gives us a perfect cross section to look at. Rounding out the plan on Sol 2599, SAM will run a test of its tunable laser spectrometer.

The environment around and above the rocks gets attention in this plan, as well. We acquire regular REMS, RAD and DAN measurements, and images and movies of clouds and dust devils.

We are putting Central Butte behind us now, as we journey onwards to Western Butte, a nearby hill that appears to be similar to Central Butte. At Central Butte, we were spoiled for choice, with lots of rocky outcrops to investigate. Yesterday’s drive brought us to the type of workspace we have seen previously in Glen Torridon – lots and lots of small pebbles and sand.

We did still manage to find things to analyze. APXS will integrate on an area called “Flow Country” over the weekend, split into three distinct sections - sand, very small pebbles and a single larger pebble. This will allow us to compare the compositions, and to see how they relate to pebbly material encountered further back in Glen Torridon. MAHLI will complete the contact science on Flow Country, imaging all three parts of the target. ChemCam is investigating some larger fragments of rock “Nutberry Moss” and “Otterswick,” as well as two potential meteorite targets “Pladda Isle” and “Swona.”

As always, our plan is full of Mastcam imagery. In addition to documenting the ChemCam targets, Mastcam is imaging two sand patches “Stemster” (seen in the image above) and “Stonywynd,” and looking back towards Central Butte before we drive on sol 2595.

The Environmental theme group (ENV) planned a series of Mastcam and ECAM movies to look at environmental conditions, such as dust devils, clouds and dust overhead in the sky above the rover and towards the walls of Gale crater. REMS and DAN will continue their ongoing environmental monitoring.

Once the drive completes, we will stay in place until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Mastcam will image our new workspace and surrounding area so that we can do lots of contact science and a very special imaging project over the holiday period.

Curiosity is continuing her exploration of Central Butte, focusing on characterizing the lithology of ledge-forming rocks in this area. The Sol 2591 plan includes several ChemCam observations of “Ard Neakie” to assess a gray fractured zone, “Glen Doll” to characterize more typical bedrock adjacent to the fractured zone, and “Isle Ristol” to assess vertical changes in chemistry. The plan involves a lot of contact science as well, including APXS and a MAHLI full suite on “Glen Doll” and “Ard Neakie,” and a DRT, MAHLI full suite and overnight APXS on “Muckle Flugga” to characterize the bedrock at this location. The Geology theme group also planned a Mastcam mosaic of “Muckle Flugga” and documentation of the ChemCam targets. The plan also includes typical DAN and REMS observations and a Navcam atmospheric movie. I’m looking forward to seeing the results from all of the great contact science!

Because of several power-hungry activities, Curiosity's planned science activities needed to be rather thin for the next two sols. However, we were still able to plan some great science observations and get us ready for our next move through the clay-bearing Glen Torridon region. First, Curiosity will acquire a series of Mastcam images of the surrounding workspace to document the rock texture and composition along the western slope of Central Butte, a large topographic high that has been the target of exploration over the past week or so. These observations will include multispectral images of the most recent contact science target (named "Muckle Flugga," see image), two high-resolution mosaics (one of the terrain just off the front-right wheel and one of the edge of Central Butte), and imaging of a knobby rock unit in front of the rover. Then, Curiosity will perform a maneuver called "Full MAHLI Wheel Imaging," where we use the MAHLI instrument to image Curiosity's wheels to monitor damage over the course of its traverse. The following day, Curiosity will drive away from its current location and continue exploring the Glen Torridon Unit, followed by some post-drive imaging to aid with planning weekend science activities.

Two new target names in today's plan are "Birnam Wood" and "Dunsinane," which are both referred to in Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth. Fortunately, Curiosity doesn't have to worry about battling royalty for control of the throne - Curiosity is already the Ruler of Gale crater!