Category: Blogs

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Earth planning date: Friday, July 24, 2026 Curiosity spent the week continuing to climb her way up through the layers of Mount Sharp, exploring the sedimentary rock strip chart of Martian history. The rover has reached a layer where the science […]

Written by Lucy Thompson, Senior Research Scientist, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Friday, July 27, 2026 As an APXS uplink lead and strategic planner, I have the privilege of working with the rover engineers most days that I am on operations. The APXS instrument measures the chemistry of rocks, unconsolidated materials and […]

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University, Toronto Earth planning date: Friday, July 10, 2026 Curiosity had a successful long weekend and came into this week ready to explore some more. We’ve been moving fairly rapidly through different mapped “units,” or distinct geological areas of interest, visiting a different one at each of […]

Written by Deborah Padgett, MSL Operations Product Ground System Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Thursday, July 2, 2026 Curiosity spent the week leading up to the Fourth of July holiday approaching a geologic boundary between a very smooth but somewhat sandy region and a rougher bedrock unit.  Leaving the polygonal […]

Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, June 26, 2026 There were two planning cycles over this span of sols. The Monday planning took place with Curiosity situated within a unit that from orbital imagery appeared light-toned, and from earlier rover positions appeared smooth. Reaching this unit, the […]

By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Thursday, June 18, 2026 In the area Curiosity is currently exploring, the science team has mapped several areas with different-looking surface texture on the orbital images. If you wanted to have a look yourself at what there is to […]

Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, June 12, 2026 Rather than going from stage to stage at a music festival to hear different bands playing different varieties of music, Curiosity has been ascending up Mount Sharp through physical bands of exposed rocks with textural and tonal differences. […]

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning day: Friday, June 5th, 2026 In a very broad sense, Curiosity has two modes of doing science – one centred around a defined science campaign (such as the recent boxwork campaign) and the other as we move […]

By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Friday, May 29, 2026 Drilling always keeps the rover in place for a little while, and our 47th successful drill, “Campo Marte,” was no exception. The team used the time wisely and on top of the drilling, we also […]

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Earth planning date: Friday, May 22, 2026 I spent this past weekend eagerly awaiting the downlink from Mars that would show us the results of Curiosity’s drill attempt at “Campo Marte.” A few weeks ago, when Curiosity drilled the “Atacama” […]