Mars Science Laboratory Mission Team Members May 28, 2026 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 Curiosity’s drill attempt at “Campo Marte.” A few weeks ago, when Curiosity drilled the “Atacama” block, it had been quite the surprise to see the post-drill images arrive on Earth that showed the rover picking up the entire Atacama block along with the drill. After freeing ourselves from this pesky passenger, the team carefully assessed all the telemetry and imaging data we had collected to understand why the entanglement happened and to mitigate the chance of it happening again. We concluded it would be ok to try another drill in this general area, and nearby Campo Marte looked like a great target because it had all the right geologic features and was significantly bigger than Atacama.…