Sols 2457-2460: A busy holiday weekend!

Curiosity will continue to investigate the rocky Harlaw region of the Glen Torridon formation on this holiday weekend. Curiosity arrived at her current location on Monday and has been investigating some interesting layered bedrock material over the past few days. Today’s planning was for the next four sols, where Curiosity will continue her investigation of this area before a short drive to the south on Saturday. In the plan for the first sol, Curiosity will use the ChemCam instrument to analyze the chemistry of four bedrock targets representative of the surrounding region and potential alteration features: “Benfiddich,” “Orbost,” Dunnet,” and the appropriately named “Forth” (not the same spelling as the Fourth of July, but close enough!). Overnight, the APXS instrument will make a long measurement of its calibration target. On the second sol, Curiosity will acquire high resolution images of future targets further to the south and will make several measurements and observations of atmospheric phenomena. Overnight, she will use the APXS instrument to accurately measure the chemistry of two bedrock targets. On the third sol, Curiosity will make a short drive to a new target location still within the Harlaw region. During the drive, she will image her wheels using the MAHLI high-resolution camera to assess the health and performance of the wheels. Finally on the fourth sol, Curiosity will spend the day making environmental measurements with the REMS instrument. This will put us in great position to continue our investigation of the clay-bearing Glen Torridon formation early next week.