2 min read

Sols 4536-4538: Dusty Martian Magnets

A grayscale close-up image of an instrument on the Mars rover Curiosity, showing at the center of the image a U-shaped flat piece of metal face the camera, with its rounded bottom pointing toward the lower right corner of the image. It’s surrounded by metal plates at different angles, some parallel to the plane of the image, others perpendicular, and most of them secured with hex nuts. Braided bunches of cable are twisted behind these other sections, leading into the instrument.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, used to inspect the magnet on its MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager), a camera on the turret of tools at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The main purpose of Curiosity’s MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and regolith in the field; it can focus on any target from about 0.8 inches (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sept. 1, 2024 — Sol 4291, or Martian day 4,291 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 05:48:14 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by Remington Free, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Contents

Sols 4536-4538: Dusty Martian Magnets Share Details Related Terms Explore More Sols 4534-4535: Last Call for the Layered Sulfates? (West of Texoli Butte, Headed West)Sols 4532-4533: Polygon Heaven Sols 4529-4531: Honeycombs and Waffles… on Mars!Discover More Topics From NASA Mars All Mars Resources Rover Basics Mars Exploration: Science Goals

Earth planning date: Friday, May 9, 2025

I was on downlink today for SA-SPaH, our robotic arm team. We successfully completed a number of fun arm activities, including a DRT brushing and APXS observations of a bedrock target, and also completed a traverse of about 25 meters (about 82 feet). Exciting!

Today, our uplink team planned three sols of activities. On Sol 4536, we are using the arm to do some inspection imaging of the MAHLI magnet using Mastcam. This magnet allows us to determine whether or not the MAHLI cover has successfully opened or closed. These magnets accumulate a lot of Martian dust particles, so we periodically take imaging to inspect the quantity of dust and get a better understanding of the state of the hardware. I’ve included above an image of the MAHLI instrument, from our last inspection on Sol 4291. After the magnet inspection, we’ll do some more typical arm activities, which include some APXS placements, DRT brushing, and MAHLI imaging on targets of interest.

In this workspace, we are interested in targets characterizing the pale layered sulfate unit we’ve been driving on, as well as a target in the new ridge-forming unit. Beyond our arm activities, we’ll do additional science observations of the surface using Mastcam and ChemCam.

On Sol 4537, we’ll focus on driving! Prior to our drive, we’ll take some more scientific observations, including a Navcam cloud movie, Mastcam documentation of some geological units, and ChemCam LIBS on a ridge-forming unit. We have then planned a 21-meter drive (about 69 feet) to take us to a bedrock area of scientific interest. We’re excited because the terrain looks pretty benign, so we’re hoping it all goes smoothly!

Post-drive, we’ll take some Mastcam survey imaging of clasts and soils along the traverse. Finally on Sol 4538, we’ll aim our focus upwards and take a number of observations of the sky. We’ll start with a Navcam large dust-devil survey, a Mastcam tau measurement of the atmospheric optical depth, and a ChemCam passive sky observation to study atmospheric composition. Early the following morning, we’ll take some additional Navcam observations of clouds, and complete another Mastcam tau measurement of optical depth.