Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator at Framework
Earth Planning Date: Friday, November 14, 2025
From the top of Curiosity Ridge amidst the box block, the highlight of the week was the successful drilling of the Nevado Sajama target. Data collected by APXS, ChemCam and MAHLI from the rover's workspace and its immediate vicinity gave the team confidence to begin sampling. APXS and ChemCam data on two targets cleared by DRT—Nevado Sajama (before it was drilled) and Tesoro del Pangal—demonstrated that the workspace chemistry was the same as many of the ridgetop targets analyzed during the box block campaign. MAHLI images revealed the presence of thin veins in both targets, and also confirmed the structural strength of the drill target after rover engineers tested Nevado Sajama's strength by pressing down on it with the tip of a drill. The vein types identified by MAHLI were examined by ChemCam on eroded rocks that exposed both bright white and gray materials. These targets, Arenas Blancas, Camarones, and Exaltación, will provide more information about the fluids infiltrated into the box ridges, possibly contributing to their resistance to erosion. DAN collected data for long stretches of ash where all of these activities took place, and obtained data on the hydrogen (and, by extrapolation, water) content of the ridge. Mastcam has begun and will continue to build a large mosaic of our location that will include both Nevado Sajama and the Valle de la Luna drill target in the adjacent basin.
The rover's payload not only focused on studying the ridge and its drilling target, but also added to the systematic environmental data set that Curiosity has built over the past 13 years. REMS and RAD regularly recorded Martian and space weather, respectively, over the course of a week. Mastcam and Navcam measured dust in the atmosphere and looked for clouds and dust devils, while ChemCam and APXS took turns measuring different chemical components in the atmosphere.
The drilling work itself was completed on sol 4718. The first portions of drilled material will be delivered and analyzed by CheMin this weekend. The entire team is eagerly awaiting CheMin's results so they can compare them with lunar valley mineralogy obtained from the depression below us. We hope that comparing them will give us new insight into how the box unit came to be.
