MISSION UPDATES | November 11, 2019

Sols 2583-2584: Trying Not to Slip

Written by Scott Guzewich, Atmospheric Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Sols 2583-2584: Trying Not to Slip

Over the weekend, Curiosity drove further uphill on Central Butte to examine the complex layering that seems to be present. Today we saw this compelling workspace image from Navcam and quickly decided this location was worth a few days of investigation. However, Curiosity is on a rather steep slope and tilted somewhat, which prevented us from being able to use the dust removal tool in this plan. We’ll use MAHLI and APXS on “Sourhope,” the vertically-oriented rockface in the upper middle portion of this image just below the dark-colored knob. We’ll also use ChemCam on “Sourhope” in addition to “Foggy Moss” and “Hoxa.” The goal is to see if some of the material at the top of the butte (which we can’t directly reach), might have fallen down to this location where we can sample it. On the second sol of today’s plan we’ll take Mastcam images of these targets in addition to the top of the butte, and then search for dust devils and water ice clouds with Navcam.