Sols 4116-4117: Rover Kinesthetics – NASA Science

It has been a busy and exciting week for Curiosity and its science team. Our intrepid rover successfully drilled its 40th sample on Mars and today followed it up with an intensive campaign to characterize the tailings expelled while drilling “Mineral King.” When APXS analyzes a target, it receives signals from the top millimeter or less of the sample (similar to ChemCam, depending on the number of laser pulses conducted). Drilled material extracted by Curiosity and fed to SAM and/or CheMin, however, is typically extracted from 2+ cm below the surface. Drill tailings therefore provide APXS (and ChemCam) a more representative sample of the material analyzed by CheMin and/or SAM than pre-drill analyses of the target surface. Given images acquired previously showed a visually heterogeneous tailings pile, the 4116-4117 plan focused in part on acquiring MAHLI images and APXS analyses of not one but two spots on Mineral King’s tailings.