Curiosity update: Beam me up Scotty!

Sol 2300, January 24, 2019, update by MSL scientist Lucy Thompson: Curiosity is on the brink of descending down off the Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR) onto the clay-bearing unit. We are hoping to ‘beam up’ lots of interesting new data to the Mars orbiters, to be relayed to Earth after executing our plan on Mars tosol. We planned a typical ‘Touch and Go’ sol today, which includes using the arm to place our contact science instruments (APXS and MAHLI) on a rock target to document chemistry and texture, followed by remote science by ChemCam and Mastcam to also look at chemistry and the larger scale view out the front window, before a drive. We are documenting how the chemistry and appearance of the rock is changing as we transition from the resistant VRR to the less resistant, orbitally distinct clay-bearing unit, and taking larger-scale images and mosaics to assist in future planning of our investigation of the clay-bearing unit… [More at link]