Sols 4130-4131: A Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Touch-And-Go

Earth planning date: Monday, March 18, 2024

It was a fairly calm planning day after a few weeks of activity at Mineral King, with a familiar touch-and-go plan. That's not the only thing that's back to normal – ENV has ended our dust storm watch as dust activity has calmed down to seasonal levels. We even have a (slightly hazy) view of the crater rim again (see above)!

After leaving Mineral King behind we were greeted by a new workspace for the first time in almost 30 sols. For the "touch" part of the touch-and-go, APXS and MAHLI will be getting up close with bedrock target "Tunnel View." MAHLI will also be examining "Cardinal Mountain," a set of dark veins in another block.

While not getting quite as close as MAHLI and APXS, Mastcam and ChemCam are also taking advantage of the workspace with LIBS on "Ireland Lake" (appropriately named for the day after St Patrick's Day!), a ChemCam mosaic of "Fascination Turret," and Mastcam mosaics of the upper Gediz Vallis Ridge and "Koontz Pinnacle." On the ENV side, we're rounding out the sol with an image of the rover deck to track any potential movement from wind, and a couple of observations to monitor the decreasing dust. Then it's time to go – off towards Fascination Turret.

On our second sol, after the drive, we have our regular untargeted science block that will be given over to a ChemCam AEGIS activity, another deck monitoring observation, a line of sight to the crater rim, and a dust devil movie. After that Curiosity gets to take a well deserved nap for the rest of the plan.

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University