Sols 899-902: Long weekend, long plan!
13 February 2015Today we planned 4 sols to take the rover through President’s day weekend. We humans get a long weekend, but the rover has a lot of work to do! We were supposed to drive about 45 meters in the previous plan, but the data received this morning showed that the rover stopped after only 17… Read More
Sols 896-898: In search of the next drill target
11 February 2015After completing our drilling activities at the Pink Cliffs outcrop, Curiosity is ready to move on to the next location. But where to drill? We’re searching for something that is chemically very different from the last drill target (Mojave2). After much discussion, we… Read More
Sols 894-895: “You do have the coolest job in the world”
9 February 2015The planning day kicked off to a great start, with the SOWG Chair (Aileen Yingst) reminding us that we do have the coolest job in the world. I’m the Geology Theme Lead today, and it certainly feels like an exciting job. In this plan we’ve managed to use almost every… Read More
Sols 891-893: Sample Transfer to SAM
6 February 2015The 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… Read More
Sol 890: CheMin Analysis
5 February 2015MSL's batteries are almost fully charged, so the Sol 890 plan includes another CheMin measurement of the "Mojave2" drill sample. CheMin and SAM require more power than the other instruments, but we want to better understand the mineral composition of the drill sample before we dump the… Read More
Sol 889: Vein target
4 February 2015The Sol 888 data show that the rover's batteries are recharging, and we received more data than expected. So Sol 889 planning is less constrained by power, and we were able to include ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the dump pile (center of this image). In the afternoon,… Read More
Sol 888: Sample dump pile
3 February 2015The Sol 887 data received this morning show that a sample portion was successfully delivered to SAM, and the un-sieved part of the sample was dumped onto the ground as planned (the pile is just above center in this image). Sol 888 activities are limited by the need to recharge the… Read More
Sol 887: Sample Analysis
2 February 2015I'm SOWG Chair today, so I called in to enough of the operations planning teleconferences on Saturday to ensure that I was familiar with the goals for Sol 887. Most people don't like working on weekends, but I definitely felt that it was worthwhile to do as much as possible while MSL is… Read More
Sol 884: Sample Transfer to CheMin
30 January 2015After successfully drilling the target “Mojave2” on Sol 882, the next step is to deliver the sample to CheMin for analysis. We acquired some great Mastcam and MAHLI images of the drill hole and mini drill hole, and we’re looking forward to learning more about… Read More
Sol 883: A Closer Look at the Latest Drill Hole on Mars
29 January 2015On Sol 882 Curiosity completed another full drill hole on Mars. The target was “Mojave2” and it proved to be much more stable than “Mojave” (our previous attempt at doing a mini-drill at Mojave resulted in breaking the rock apart). This time everything went… Read More
