Curiosity Begins Drill Campaign at Atacama Site Targeting Mount Sharp Layered Sulfate Bedrock

by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles, CA (SPX) May 04, 2026
NASA's Curiosity rover has launched a new drill campaign at a site called Atacama on Mars, targeting layered-sulfate bedrock on Mount Sharp - the first such material the rover has encountered since departing the boxwork terrain.

The campaign was outlined by Sharon Wilson Purdy, a planetary geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, in a mission update covering sols 4873 through 4878. The science team executed a six-sol sequence structured around three dedicated drill activity phases.

The first three-sol plan, covering sols 4873 to 4875, concentrated on "drill sol 1" operations. These included a pre-load test on the Atacama drill target and triage contact science. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) assembled a set of repeated observations on the Atacama target, while coordinated Microscopic Imager (MAHLI) images taken under varying lighting conditions were planned to detect any changes between datasets. Mastcam acquired stereo mosaics documenting the drill site, investigating bedrock variations at a location called "Kimsa Chata," and characterizing layering within a feature known as Paniri butte.

Planning resumed on Friday with a second three-sol block covering sols 4876 to 4878, which incorporated the full drill sequence and sample portion characterization activities designated "drill sols 2 and 3." Mastcam targeted stereo mosaics of several nearby rocks: a laminated rock with an exposed edge named "Queen of the Andes," a rock with polygonal fractures that was broken during a rover drive-over named "Curaco," and additional coverage of the "El Almendrillo" target.

The rover's Environmental theme group continued ongoing monitoring work in parallel, tracking atmospheric dust levels, studying cloud movements, and documenting dust devil activity. ChemCam, the laser-based remote-sensing instrument, was set to autonomously select two targets for analysis during the planning period.

The team's next objective is to deliver a portion of the Atacama drill sample to the CheMin instrument, which uses X-ray diffraction to identify mineral composition. Scientists are particularly interested in comparing the mineralogy of the layered sulfate unit at Atacama against results from the rover's previous drill at the Mineral King site, located approximately 160 meters (525 feet) lower on Mount Sharp. That comparison is expected to reveal how sulfate mineralogy varies across different elevations of the stratigraphic sequence the rover has been ascending.