Mars Science Laboratory Mission Team Members Apr 21, 2026 Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Earth planning date: Friday, April 17, 2026 At the beginning of the week, Curiosity arrived right on target on the rim of the 10-meter (33 feet) “Antofagasta” crater .   The crater looked fresh and deep as we had hoped with a nice well-defined rim that didn't look too eroded, but the bottom of it turned out to be filled with dark rippled sandy material that covered up the most interesting rock layers. There were a few rock exposures just above the sand cover that seemed like they might have been deep enough to have been sheltered from space radiation between the time their sediments were deposited and the crater-forming impact, but reaching them from the rim would have put the rover at such an awkward angle that we wouldn't have been able to deliver the sample to the instruments.…