Curiosity Blog, Sols 4716-4722: Drilling Success at Nevado Sajama

Curiosity Navigation

Curiosity Home

Mission Overview
Where is Curiosity?
Mission Updates

Science

Overview
Instruments
Highlights
Exploration Goals

News and Features
Multimedia

Curiosity Raw Images
Images
Videos
Audio
Mosaics
More Resources

Mars Missions

Mars Sample Return
Mars Perseverance Rover
Mars Curiosity Rover
MAVEN
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Odyssey
More Mars Missions

Mars Home

2 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4716-4722: Drilling Success at Nevado Sajama

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the “Nevado Sajama” drill hole, using its Left Navigation Camera on Nov. 13, 2025 — Sol 4718, or Martian day 4,718 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 19:46:43 UTC.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator at Framework
Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 14, 2025
From Curiosity’s ridge-top perch among the boxwork unit, the highlight of the week was the successful drilling of the “Nevado Sajama” target. The data collected by APXS, ChemCam, and MAHLI from the rover workspace and its immediate vicinity gave the team confidence to proceed with sampling. APXS and ChemCam data from two targets cleared by the DRT — Nevado Sajama (before it was drilled) and “Tesoro del Pangal” — demonstrated that the chemistry of the workspace was in family with the many ridge-top targets analyzed during the boxwork unit campaign. MAHLI imaging revealed the presence of fine veins in both targets, and also confirmed the structural soundness of the drill target after the rover engineers tested the strength of Nevado Sajama by pressing down on it with the drill tip. The types of veins observed by MAHLI were investigated by ChemCam on broken bedrock faces that exposed both bright white and gray materials. These targets, “Arenas Blancas,” “Camarones,” and “Exaltación,” will provide more insight into the fluids that penetrated the boxwork ridges, perhaps contributing to their erosion resistance. DAN collected data for long stretches across the sols over which all these activities occurred, gaining data on the hydrogen (and by extrapolation, water) content of the ridge. Mastcam began and will continue to build a large mosaic of our location which will include both Nevado Sajama and the drill target “Valle de la Luna” within an adjacent hollow. 
The rover payload was not only focused on studying the ridge and drill target, but also added to the systematic environmental dataset Curiosity has built over the last 13 years. REMS and RAD regularly recorded Martian and space weather, respectively, throughout the week. Mastcam and Navcam measured dust loading in the atmosphere, and looked for clouds and dust devils while ChemCam and APXS took turns measuring different chemical components in the atmosphere. 
The drill activity itself completed on Sol 4718. This weekend, the first portions of the drilled material will be delivered to and analyzed by CheMin. The whole team is anxiously awaiting the CheMin results in order to compare them to the Valle de la Luna mineralogy derived from the hollow below us. We hope their comparison will provide us with new insights into how the boxwork unit came to be. 

Want to read more posts from the Curiosity team?

Visit Mission Updates

Want to learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments?

Visit the Science Instruments page

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity at the base of Mount Sharp
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Share

Details

Last Updated

Nov 18, 2025

Related Terms

Blogs

Explore More

3 min read

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4709-4715: Drilling High and Low in the Boxwork Unit

Article

23 minutes ago

4 min read

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4702-4708: It’s Only Spooky Here on Earth Today!

Article

5 days ago

3 min read

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4695-4701: Searching for Answers at Monte Grande

Article

5 days ago

Keep Exploring
Discover More Topics From NASA

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…

All Mars Resources

Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…

Rover Basics

Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…

Mars Exploration: Science Goals

The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…