Physical properties of terrains encountered by the Curiosity rover during the first 360 sols of operations have been inferred from analysis of the scour zones produced by Sky Crane Landing System engine plumes, wheel touch down dynamics, pits produced by Chemical Camera (ChemCam) laser shots, rover wheel traverses over rocks, the extent of sinkage into soils, and the magnitude and sign of rover‐based slippage during drives. Results have been integrated with morphologic, mineralogic, and thermophysical properties derived from orbital data, and Curiosity‐based measurements, to understand the nature and origin of physical properties of traversed terrains. The hummocky plains (HP) landing site and traverse locations consist of moderately to well‐consolidated bedrock of alluvial origin variably covered by slightly cohesive, hard‐packed basaltic sand and dust, with both embedded and surface‐strewn rock clasts. Rock clasts have been added through local bedrock weathering and impact ejecta emplacement and form a pavement‐like surface in which only small clasts (<5 to 10 cm wide) have been pressed into the soil during wheel passages. The bedded fractured (BF) unit, site of Curiosity's first drilling activity, exposes several alluvial‐lacustrine bedrock units with little to no soil cover and varying degrees of lithification. Small wheel sinkage values (<1 cm) for both HP and BF surfaces demonstrate that compaction resistance countering driven‐wheel thrust has been minimal and that rover slippage while traversing across horizontal surfaces or going uphill, and skid going downhill, have been dominated by terrain tilts and wheel‐surface material shear modulus values.

This paper describes recent work toward developing a terramechanics-based modeling and validation infrastructure for characterizing the Curiosity rovers mobility properties on the Mars surface. The resulting simulation tool, ARTEMIS (Adams-based Rover Terramechanics and Mobility Interaction Simulator), is composed of a MSC-Adams dynamic rover model, a library of terramechanics subroutines, and high-resolution digital elevati on maps of the Mars surface. Rover-terrain interactions that are modeled include longitudinal, lateral, and vertical wheel-terrain intera ction forces, the e ffect of slip sinkage, and multi-pass e ffects. A single wheel ARTEMIS model was also developed. Model validation has been performed via several complementary methods. Mobility properties of a Curiosity rover flight spare wheel have been analyzed at the Robotic Mobility Groups terramechanics lab at MIT using a single wheel test rig capable of reproducing forced-slip and freeslip conditions. In order to evaluate ARTEMIS potential in full, the simulation was used to model the performance of the Mars-weight Curiosity test rover (a.k.a. Scarecrow) while operating in realistic scenarios.