Curiosity update: Have we reached the peak?

Sols 2104-06, July 6, 2018, update by MSL scientist Scott Guzewich: Our primary goal for today’s planning was to continue to approach our next drill location on the Vera Rubin Ridge by paralleling the north side of the ridge (seen on the left side of this image, right) during this plan’s drive while documenting the geochemistry of the bedrock we’re currently parked on and continuing to study the ongoing planet-encircling dust storm. A warning from ChemCam received early this morning prevented us from employing ChemCam for both of those purposes, but it was cleared up later and will be ready for Monday’s planning. We therefore took advantage of the unexpected availability of science time to include some routine Mastcam calibration activities and additional observations of the dust storm. The amount of dust over Gale Crater has been slowly declining over the last two weeks and it’s possible the dust storm has reached its…. [More at link]