Tag Archives: Ailsa Craig

Curiosity report, Sols 2093-2162, by Emily Lakdawalla, The Planetary Society

Posted on September 7, 2018 by rburnham

September 6, 2018: Three Tries to Successful Drill Atop Vera Rubin Ridge: Heedless of the (now-dissipating) dust storm, Curiosity has achieved its first successful drill into rocks that form the Vera Rubin ridge, and is hopefully on the way to … Continue reading →

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Curiosity update: The story of Stoer

Posted on August 30, 2018 by rburnham

Sol 2156 August 30, 2018, update by MSL scientist Abigail Fraeman: After an extremely productive couple of weeks, we are finishing up our work at Stoer! We’ll take some quick ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the tailings dump pile tosols … Continue reading →

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Curiosity: Zapping Ailsa Craig

Posted on July 30, 2018 by rburnham

Sol 2125, July 29, 2018. Penetrating the rock at Ailsa Craig, like that at Voyageurs, proved to be too difficult for Curiosity’s drill. So mission scientists turned the ChemCam’s laser zapper onto the shallow hole and loose tailings, as the … Continue reading →

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Curiosity update: It’s a hard rock life

Posted on July 28, 2018 by rburnham

Sols 2124-26, July 27, 2018, update by MSL scientist Ryan Anderson: Our attempt at drilling the target “Ailsa Craig” was partly successful: the drill behaved exactly as it was supposed to, but unfortunately we weren’t able to drill very deep. … Continue reading →

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Curiosity: Shallow drill hole at Ailsa Craig

Posted on July 27, 2018 by rburnham

Sol 2123, July 27, 2018. Curiosity put its drill to work on the brushed surface of the target dubbed Ailsa Craig — and got just a shallow hole. As at the Voyageurs site, the drill dug only a very short … Continue reading →

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Curiosity update: Preparing to drill at ‘Ailsa Craig’

Posted on July 26, 2018 by rburnham

Sols 2122-23, July 25, 2018, update by MSL scientist Rachel Kronyak: Yesterday, the science team chose a new drill target, “Ailsa Craig,” and we spent the day triaging the target with our contact science instruments, DRT, MAHLI, and APXS. The … Continue reading →

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Curiosity: Giving Ailsa Craig the brushoff

Posted on July 25, 2018 by rburnham

Sol 2120-21, July 24-25, 2018. With Curiosity positioned to drill at Ailsa Craig (circled in the Sol 2120 Mastcam composite above), mission scientists first brushed off the target rock. The brushed area is seen as a darker oval area in … Continue reading →

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Curiosity update: Blackjack!

Posted on July 25, 2018 by rburnham

Sol 2121, July 24, 2018, update by MSL scientist Michelle Minitti: Mars dealt us a winning hand today, yielding a sufficiently flat parking space after yesterday’s short bump to allow us to proceed with our plan to drill in this … Continue reading →

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