Category: Blogs

Written by Lucy Thompson, APXS Strategic Planner and Planetary Geologist at the University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Friday, March 27, 2026 Last weekend’s drive took us just over the southernmost contact of the boxwork terrain with the surrounding layered sulfate unit. This was our third time crossing this contact, providing an excellent […]

Written by Deborah Padgett, MSL Operations Product Ground System Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Friday, March 20, 2026 Curiosity has just concluded a very intense week of science observations and engineering activities, as it wraps up its monthslong investigation of the Martian boxwork terrain. Three days of planning this week […]

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Friday, March 13, 2026 We are in our final phase of the boxwork campaign, investigating the contacts between the boxwork unit and the layered sulfate unit. As my colleague Bill reported here, last week we crossed […]

Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, March 6, 2026 Curiosity is in the last stage of its exploration of the spiderweb-like boxwork unit. This stage consists of exploring the eastern and southern borders of this terrain. There were two multi-sol plans assembled this week. The previous plan […]

Written by Ashley Stroupe, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 27, 2026 This week we had three planning sessions, exploring the eastern side of the boxwork unit. As a Rover Planner on Monday, I worked on the arm and drive activities, while on Friday I served as the […]

Written by Diana Hayes, Graduate student at York University, Toronto Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 20, 2026 This has been a pretty routine week for Curiosity. As was mentioned last week, we’re now in the final phase of the boxwork exploration campaign. We’re currently making our way toward the eastern contact of the boxwork formation […]

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 13, 2026 Curiosity spent this week at Gale crater completing the last few activities associated with the “Nevado Sajama 2” drill before kicking off our final phase of the boxwork exploration campaign. As we’ve explored the boxwork region, the science team has […]

Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 6, 2026 The results from our first visit to the “Nevado Sajama” drill location were intriguing enough to motivate our return to do a deeper dive into the minerals and compounds locked in this rock with SAM (the Sample Analysis at Mars […]

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University, Toronto Earth planning date: Friday, Jan. 30, 2026 Mars has emerged from its holiday behind the Sun, and we here on Earth have been able to reconnect with Curiosity and get back to work on Mars. Our first planning day last Friday gave Curiosity a full […]

Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Scientist and APXS team member, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Monday, Dec. 22, 2025 As we all prepare for the holiday season here on Earth, we have been planning a few last activities before Curiosity and the team of scientists and engineers take a well-deserved, extended break. […]