Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Friday, April 11, 2025

Curiosity is continuing to book it to the potential boxwork structures.  The rover drove over 50 meters on Wednesday, and we plan to drive more than 50 meters again in today’s plan thanks to an unusually good viewshed that allows us to see far ahead.  We’ve been able to see glimpses of the boxwork structures in the distance for a few weeks now, and I am really excited about being able to plan long drives that get us closer and closer. What will we find when we reach them?

Power was on everyone’s mind as we put the plan together today. The science team had lots of amazing ideas about observations to collect from our current location, but we had to carefully plan and prioritize them to make sure we didn’t use too much power and leave the rover battery lower than we’d like for Monday’s plan.  Winter on Mars certainly keeps us on our toes!  We ended up putting together what I think is a pretty good set of activities for the weekend.  MAHLI, APXS, and ChemCam will all work together to observe a flat rock in front of us named “Iron Mountain.” MAHLI will also do an experiment with this rock, testing different combinations of camera positions to see which produces the best data to help us generate 3D models of the rock’s surface.  I know rocks don’t have feelings, but if they did, I hope Iron Mountain can use this time to feel a bit like a movie star on the red carpet, getting photographed from all angles. Mastcam will also be photographing the surroundings, working with ChemCam’s RMI imager to take images the ridge containing boxwork structures named “Ghost Mountain,” and taking some solo shots of targets in the foreground named “Redondo Flat,” “Silverwood Sanctuary,” and the oft photographed Gould Mesa.  Navcam, REMS, and DAN round out the science plan with some environmental observations. We’ll be getting one more science and engineering hybrid observation when we collect ChemCam passive spectral data of the instrument’s calibration target in parallel with one of our communication passes.  This observation is part of a series of tests we’re doing to run rover activities in parallel with these passes, and if successful, will allow us to be more even more power efficient in the future.

We’re also celebrating a soliday this weekend, which means we only have a two-sol plan instead of our usual three as the Mars and Earth time zones re-align for the next few weeks.  I’m looking forward to seeing where Curiosity drives next week.