Sols 891-893: Sample Transfer to SAM

The three sol plan will keep Curiosity very busy this weekend.  The main activities in this plan include dropping off part of the Mojave2 drill sample to the SAM instrument, and some remote sensing activities with Mastcam, ChemCam and Navcam.  The samples that we’re dropping off to SAM can be thought of as “doggie bags” because we’ll take the sample with us for analysis at a later time.  The first sol of the weekend plan also includes several atmospheric monitoring activities with Navcam and Mastcam.  The second sol includes a number of ChemCam observations to assess the chemistry of a soil target and perform some instrument calibration activities.  The third sol is devoted to ChemCam and Mastcam observations of an interesting vein target named “San Francisquito” to assess its chemistry and test ChemCam autofocusing in low light conditions.   The vein was previously captured in this MAHLI image.  I’ll be on duty as the Geology Theme Lead on Monday, so I’m trying to get up to speed to prepare for next week!

By Lauren Edgar 

--Lauren is a Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of MSL science team.

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.