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Curiosity update, sols 2093-2162: Three tries to successful drill atop Vera Rubin Ridge-- 5

Sol 2121 update by Michelle Minitti: Blackjack! (24 July 2018)
Mars dealt us a winning hand today, yielding a sufficiently flat parking space after yesterday’s short bump to allow us to proceed with our plan to drill in this part of the “Vera Rubin Ridge.” Our current parking spot does not exhibit as strong a hematite signal from orbit as the site of our last drill attempt, but it still importantly provides an opportunity to sample the “Pettegrove Point” member of the Vera Rubin Ridge.
Today we focused almost solely on characterizing the drill target, melodiously named “Ailsa Craig,” using MAHLI and APXS after brushing it with the DRT. The rover will also place the drill in contact with the target and push into it to test the target’s stability for drilling. If our luck continues, we will attempt drilling tomorrow! The science team managed to squeeze one observation unrelated to drilling into the plan - a single image of the sky to monitor the dust in the atmosphere.

Sols 2122-2123 update by Rachel Kronyak: Preparing to drill at “Ailsa Craig” (25 July 2018)
Yesterday, the science team chose a new drill target, “Ailsa Craig,” and we spent the day triaging the target with our contact science instruments, DRT, MAHLI, and APXS. The image above is one of the MAHLI images that we collected after the DRT removed some of the surface dust over the drill target.

Today, we’re planning two sols. Sol 2122 is devoted to drilling the target Ailsa Craig! We’ll collect some complementary observations to document our drilling activities with the Mastcam, MAHLI, and ChemCam RMI cameras. We’ll spend most of Sol 2123 recharging, but we also managed to squeeze in a few additional science observations, including two ChemCam LIBS analyses on nearby bedrock targets “Tolsta Head” and “Appin.” We’ll also use Mastcam to document two nearby crater features named “Taconite” and “Peterhead.” Finally, we’ll conduct some standard atmospheric tau and crater rim observations.

Sols 2124-2126 update by Ryan Anderson: It’s a Hard Rock Life (J27 July 2018)
Our attempt at drilling the target “Ailsa Craig” was partly successful: the drill behaved exactly as it was supposed to, but unfortunately we weren’t able to drill very deep. The rock here is just too hard! Since we didn’t get a nice deep drill hole, the plan for the weekend is to do some final observations at this location and then move on another location to try again.

The science block on Sol 2124 starts with a ChemCam passive observation of the pulverized rock tailings from our shallow drill hole. That will be followed by an “active” (laser zapping) observation of the vein target “LamLash Bay” accompanied by Mastcam multispectral images. Later in the afternoon, Mastcam and Navcam will do some atmospheric observations to monitor the dust levels as the planet-encircling storm gradually dies down. We’ll wrap up the day with APXS observations on and off of the drill hole.

In the morning of Sol 2125 Navcam and Mastcam have more atmospheric observations. Later in the afternoon, ChemCam will also analyze the chemistry of the drill hole and tailings and Mastcam and Navcam will do some more atmospheric measurements, including watching for dust devils.

On Sol 2126, Curiosity will drive toward our next potential drill location. We’ll collect the usual post-drive images to help us choose targets on Monday, as well as some more dust monitoring with Navcam.

Sol 2127 update by Christopher Edwards: Continuing to Understand Pettegrove Point (31 Aug 2018)
Curiosity completed its drive successfully after the science team regrouped from the incomplete drill, which required a different than anticipated weekend plan. The rocks of the Vera Rubin Ridge are just turning out to be harder than expected! In today’s plan, we will continue to assess the compositional diversity of the Vera Rubin Ridge Pettegrove Point member. In this workspace, we planned activities for two contact science targets, with APXS and MAHLI imaging of the locations dubbed “Diabiag” and “Slioch”. The Diabiag target has a purple hue in Mastcam imagery and appears to be relatively dust free, while the Slioch target is darker. The team could not find a suitable place to brush the dust away with a DRT activity since the local bedrock was extremely rough.

In addition to these contact science activities, multiple ChemCam observations were planned along with the Mastcam documentation images. These observations will complement the contact science activities. Over the next few days Curiosity will make its way to another location where we’ll try to drill again. Data from when Curiosity previously visited the site where we will attempt to drill again indicates that the rock might be a little softer than where we last tried to drill a few sols ago. In the next few sols, we’ll know more, but until then Curiosity will continue to characterize the diversity of the intriguing Vera Rubin Ridge.

Sol 2128 update by Ryan Anderson: In Search of Softer Rocks (31 July 2018)
On Sol 2128, Curiosity will continue toward our third potential drill site within the Pettegrove Point member of Vera Rubin Ridge, where we are hoping to find slightly softer rocks. The day will begin with ChemCam observations of the target “Slioch,” which was already analyzed by APXS, as well as the layered rock “Craignure Bay.” Mastcam will document both of these targets, using a small mosaic around Craignure Bay to capture images of some of the tilted rocks nearby as well. Then Navcam will do some atmospheric observations. After that, the rover will drive toward our next drill site and take some post-drive images. Navcam will do some more atmospheric measurements, and ChemCam will make an auto-targeted observation of the bedrock near the rover. We will finish off the plan with an 8-frame Navcam “movie” of the sky to look for clouds and measure the wind direction over Gale crater.

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be close enough to do just a short bump to the drill site so we can try drilling again this weekend!

Sol 2129 update by Lauren Edgar: Dude, where’s my data? (1 August 2018)
Curiosity is currently on her way to a potentially softer rock target to drill in the Pettegrove Point member of Vera Rubin Ridge. Today was a late slide sol, which means we had to wait until 11am PDT for the downlink to arrive. Unfortunately, we didn’t get our downlink today from MRO. I was the SOWG Chair today, and it was an interesting morning as we had to quickly adjust the plan without knowing the current state of the rover. However, the team turned it around and made the most of the untargeted remote sensing sol. The geology theme group planned several autonomously targeted AEGIS observations of bedrock in the workspace, along with a Mastcam mosaic of the workspace and a Navcam mosaic of the ChemCam targetable region to prepare for targeting in the weekend plan. The environmental theme group took advantage of the day with two Mastcam tau and crater rim extinction observations, a Navcam line of sight and dust devil movie, and Navcam suprahorizon and zenith movies. All of this great environmental monitoring data will help as we continue to assess the ongoing dust storm. Looking ahead, we hope to proceed with science activities and driving in the weekend plan with the help of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to relay data. Just another day and another
Curiosity update, sols 2093-2162: Three tries to successful drill atop Vera Rubin Ridge-- 5 Curiosity update, sols 2093-2162: Three tries to successful drill atop Vera Rubin Ridge-- 5 Reviewed by Reshaper on October 15, 2018 Rating: 5

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