Sols 1612-1613: Planning challenges
16 February 2017After a 23-meter drive on Sol 1611, MSL again ended up in an area with many bedrock blocks partly covered by dark sand.
We're planning two sols today to get a head start on planning for the
holiday weekend, with the first sol strategically planned to allow the
"touch and go" option. But there's a ridge about 30 meters ahead that
we can't see over, and we would like to be able to drive up onto it on
Sol 1612 to allow a drive past it to be planned this weekend. There
isn't enough time before the "decisional" telecommunications opportunity
to fit both contact science and a 30-meter drive into the plan, so we had to pick one of these two options. Based on images taken from orbit
and by the rover, lots of bedrock is exposed at the crest of the ridge
30 meters away, so we picked the longer drive at the expense of contact
science today, hoping that the rover will be in a better place for contact
science this weekend. Before the drive, ChemCam and Right Mastcam will
observe a bright/dark boundary on a block at the left side of the image
above (dubbed "Frenchville"), and Right Mastcam will acquire a 2x2 mosaic
of another block named "Third Lake." After the drive, we're planning
fewer images to support weekend planning because the expected downlink
data volume is much less than usual. We therefore spent more time than usual
carefully prioritizing the post-drive images for downlink, and may not
receive all of the data we need to plan contact science and a drive this
weekend.
Later in the afternoon of Sol 1612,
ChemCam will again use AEGIS to autonomously select a LIBS target and
acquire a 3x3 set of chemical measurements. The REMS software upgrade
went well, so REMS environmental monitoring is being planned again today! On
Sol 1613, ChemCam will acquire passive calibration data, and Navcam will
search for dust devils and clouds. Finally, the rover will sleep
overnight in preparation for what we hope will be a busy weekend plan.
The issues described above made for a challenging day for me as SOWG
Chair!
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.