[NASA] Sols 4323-4324: Surfin’ Our Way out of the Channel

[SpaceMan 0]

Curiosity Navigation

• Curiosity Home
• Science
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• Multimedia
• Mars Missions
• The Solar System

2 min read

Sols 4323-4324: Surfin’ Our Way out of the Channel

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

An image from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, looking back at the western edge of the Gediz Vallis ******** (top left) and the channel wall in the sulfate unit with unconsolidated sand/soil deposits in the foreground. This image was taken by Curiosity’s Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4321 — Martian day 4,321 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 2, 2024, at 02:13:27 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024

As a member of the group tasked with organizing our campaign to investigate the Gediz Vallis channel and ******** (informally known as the Channel Surfers), I was a little sad this morning to see that our drive had successfully taken us out of the channel, back onto the magnesium sulfate-bearing unit, into which the channel is incised. Our long-anticipated investigation of the channel has proven fruitful: Curiosity made the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, and we have examined a variety of intriguing lithologies and relationships within the ******** over the last 4.5 months. It has been an exciting time, and I have particularly enjoyed riding this wave with my fellow Channel Surfers — a great team! Now to make sense of all the fantastic data we have collected.

We are not completely done looking at the channel and deposits though. We will be driving parallel to the western margin for a while to facilitate comparisons with what we observed from the east. Tosol we will image two areas of interest within the Gediz Vallis channel from our current vantage point with Mastcam and ChemCam long-distance RMI. But back to the sulfate unit — the team planned a number of activities to document the return to the sulfate unit. These include APXS and MAHLI of the nodular bedrock immediately in front of the rover (“Sub Dome”), ChemCam LIBS and Mastcam of another bedrock block (“Vert Lost Grove”), and Mastcam of the resistant bedrock ridge immediately adjacent to the Gediz Vallis channel (“Muah Mountain”).

Once the drive of about 25 meters (about 82 feet) hopefully executes successfully, Curiosity will look down and image the terrain between her front wheels with MARDI, acquire ChemCam LIBS on an autonomously selected target in the workspace, and then perform a series of atmospheric and environmental observations. These include a Mastcam tau to measure dust in the atmosphere, Navcam dust ****** and suprahorizon movies, and a Navcam line-of-sight observation. The plan is rounded out with DAN, RAD, and REMS activities.

Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick

Share

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  

Details

Last Updated

Oct 03, 2024

Related Terms

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

Explore More

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

2 min read

Sols 4321-4322: Sailing Out of Gediz Vallis

Article


1 day ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

2 min read

Sols 4318-4320: One Last Weekend in the Channel

Article


4 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

4 min read

Sols 4316-4317: Hunting for Sulfur

Article


6 days ago

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

All Mars Resources

Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Rover Basics

Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Mars Exploration: Science Goals

The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up