Curiosity Rover Updates
These updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public. Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University, Toronto Earth planning date: Friday, July 10, 2026 Curiosity had a successful long weekend and came into this week ready to explore some more. We’ve been moving fairly rapidly through different…
Written by Deborah Padgett, MSL Operations Product Ground System Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Earth planning date: Thursday, July 2, 2026 Curiosity spent the week leading up to the Fourth of July holiday approaching a geologic boundary between…
Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, June 26, 2026 There were two planning cycles over this span of sols. The Monday planning took place with Curiosity situated within a unit that from…
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…
Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute Earth planning date: Friday, June 12, 2026 Rather than going from stage to stage at a music festival to hear different bands playing different varieties of music, Curiosity has been…
Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning date: Friday, June 5, 2026 In a very broad sense, Curiosity has two modes of doing science – one centred around a…
By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Friday, May 29, 2026 Drilling always keeps the rover in place for a little while, and our 47th successful drill, “Campo Marte,” was no…
Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Earth planning date: Friday, May 22, 2026 I spent this past weekend eagerly awaiting the downlink from Mars that would show us the results of…
Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth planning date: Friday, May 15, 2026 After freeing the rover’s arm from the “Atacama” block, we are ready to drill again! The new drill target will represent…
Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator Earth planning date: Friday, May 8, 2026 While we know the monikers Ingenuity and Perseverance are attached to our sister helicopter and rover on the Mars 2020 mission, those characteristics were in…
