One of the major challenges in preparing a spacecraft for Mars is ensuring that the chemical analyses made by the instruments, in particular for the SAM mass spectrometer are not contaminated by material brought from Earth. When looking for elements and organic compounds at parts per billion levels it becomes a critical issue.
That is part of the reason for the scooping of dusty soil at our current Rocknest locality on the edge of the slope down in to Glenelg. Letting some of the sieved soil in a series of scoops into the sampling system CHIMRA, within the main body of Curiosity, is a way of cleaning out the instrument prior to determining the composition of samples on Mars.
Rocknest will be the home for Curiosity for the next few weeks because the scooping and delivery of sample is a new process for the instrument teams.
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