Written by Remington Free, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 15, 2025 Today we uplinked a three-sol weekend plan with lots of exciting activities — to support both the science and engineering teams! While usually our science activities take front and center stage, we often also do engineering […]
Category: Blogs
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4629-4630: Feeling Hollow
Written by Elena Amador-French, Science Operations Coordinator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025 Today’s team investigated the texture and chemistry of the bedrock within a topographic low, or hollow, found within the greater boxwork area. We will place our APXS instrument on the “Asiruqucha” target, some light-toned, small-scale nodular […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4627-4628: A Ridge Stop in the Boxworks
Earth planning date: Monday Aug. 11, 2025 Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center On the Curiosity team, we’re continuing our exploration of the boxwork-forming region in Gale Crater. A successful 25-meter drive (about 82 feet) brought the rover from the “peace sign” ridge intersection to a new ridge site. […]
Linking Local Lithologies to a Larger Landscape
Written by Margaret Deahn, Ph.D. Student at Purdue University NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is continuing to explore a boundary visible from orbit dividing bright, fractured outcrop from darker, smoother regolith (also known as a contact). The team has called this region “Westport,” (a fitting title, as the rover is exploring the western-most rim of Jezero), […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4622-4623: Kicking Off (Earth) Year 14 With an Investigation of Veins
Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. Today was a very special day for Curiosity as the rover celebrated the start of a 14th year on Mars. Curiosity is currently exploring the mysterious boxwork formations. On Monday, the rover positioned itself at the […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4618-4619: The Boxwork Structures Continue to Call to Us
Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer and Rover Planner at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 1, 2025. Now that we have reached August, our “landiversary” (anniversary of landing — Aug. 5 PDT) is less than a week away! The team is looking forward to being able to celebrate the milestone […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4616-4617: Standing Tall on the Ridge
Written by Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 30, 2025 The day started with a little celebration of NISAR, a new Earth observation satellite that made it successfully into orbit a few hours before our planning started. We joined in by saying “GO NISAR, […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4614-4615: Driving Along the Boxwork
Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University Earth planning date: Monday, July 28, 2025 Today was a pretty straightforward day of planning. Our drive over the weekend completed successfully, and we quickly confirmed that we are parked in a stable position. Thus, we were able to unstow the rover’s arm to poke around […]
Spheres in the Sand
Written by Andrew Shumway, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Washington It is not common for a rover to spot nearly perfect spheres in the soil beneath its wheels. Over two decades ago, the Opportunity rover famously discovered spherules made of hematite (nicknamed “blueberries”) near its landing site in Meridiani Planum. More recently, the Perseverance […]
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4611-4613: Scenic Overlook
Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Earth planning date: Friday, July 25, 2025 A 23-meter drive (about 75 feet) brought Curiosity to today’s planned “look-about” spot. The highlight of the plan will be the 360-degree Mastcam panorama that will document the ridge-and-hollow topography of the boxwork-forming unit we’ve been […]