Curiosity Blog, Sols 4927–4933: Let’s Drive to That Smooth Area
Why this matters: new research or scientific developments with potential real-world impact.
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 4 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4927–4933: Let’s Drive to That Smooth Area NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image showing a breathtaking diversity of polygons, veins, and other textural features waiting for investigation by the Mars Science Laboratory team. Curiosity captured the image using its Left Navigation Camera on June 17, 2026 – Sol 4928, or Martian day 4,928 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission – at 17:47:52 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Thursday, June 18, 2026 In the area Curiosity is currently exploring, the science team has mapped several areas with different-looking surface texture on the orbital images. If you wanted to have a look yourself at what there is to see, check the “Where is Curiosity?” map. You’ll discover different shades of orange and beige as well as more rough and more smooth-looking textures. This is what the geomorphologists in our team use to map the areas for exploration by the rover. Of course, we then supplement this all with ground-based images, including bespoke “drive direction imaging,” which is taken after each drive by the Mast Camera. Drive planning is done using a combination of all this information. So there shouldn’t be any surprises, right? On Monday the team planned three sols in preparation for a Thursday planning to account for the U.S. federal holiday weekend. The workspace turned out to be a little spiky, so we could not find an area we could DRT. APXS still found one good bedrock target, “Rio Baker,” which also had MAHLI documentation. In additi