Sol 1385: Drive then drive some more
28 June 2016Not a lot to report today: these one-sol drive plans are pretty simple! (Well, as simple as driving a giant robot on another planet can be…) Yesterday’s drive took us a little over 60m and we’re planning another drive in the sol 1385 plan. Before the drive, we have a short… Read More
Sol 1384: Baynes Mountain
27 June 2016Our weekend soliday plan was successful, putting us about halfway to our next likely drilling location. We are now in “unrestricted” planning again, meaning we will be getting data down overnight and can plan every day this week. The Sol 1384 plan starts with ChemCam of the target… Read More
Sol 1382-1383: Phobos Transit and Soliday
27 June 2016Contact science in the Sol 1380-1381 plan went well, so we're back to driving in the weekend plan! Sol 1382 will start with a Mastcam video of Phobos crossing in front of the sun, plus a multispectral observation of the brushed target “Koes”. ChemCam will then analyze the targets… Read More
Sols 1380-1381: Contact Science at “Koes”
22 June 2016The drive on Sol 1378 went well, and Curiosity drove ~44 m to the south, bringing our total drive distance to more than 13.2 km. We’re currently making our way through a gap in the Bagnold dunes (part of a dune is visible in the upper left of the drive direction Navcam frame,… Read More
Sol 1378-1379: Making up for lost distance
21 June 2016Over the weekend, the rover stopped after about 17 meters of the planned 65 meter drive. The rover is fine, the drive just tripped one of the (very conservative) limits on how the rover’s suspension was expected to behave, causing Curiosity to stop and check in with Earth. Since there… Read More
Sols 1375-1377: Another busy weekend
17 June 2016The Sol 1373 drive completed successfully, moving the rover over 31 meters toward the south. There's lots of bedrock exposed around the vehicle, but no flat patches large enough to brush in the arm workspace. So MAHLI will take images of an unbrushed target called "Andara"… Read More
Sols 1373-1374: No touch, just go!
15 June 2016The 32-meter Sol 1371 drive completed exactly as planned, giving the rover a good view of the path toward the south. So another ~30-meter drive is planned for Sol 1373, after some remote science observations. We had the option of using the DRT and taking MAHLI images of the brush… Read More
Sols 1371-1372: Driving south
13 June 2016The weekend drive went well, and Curiosity drove ~ 32 m to the south. This southward path will eventually take us through a gap in the active sand dunes that will be easier for Curiosity to traverse. We’re planning another drive today, which will take us in the direction of the… Read More
Sols 1368-1370: On the road again
10 June 2016We received the engineering data that we needed to proceed with the final science activities at the Oudam drill site. Today’s plan is focused on analyzing the pre-sieve dump pile and getting on the road again. The three-sol plan starts by moving the arm out of the way so we can target… Read More
Sols 1366-1367: Opportunistic contact science
8 June 2016The day started off with some changes to the sol path due to some holes in the downlink. Unfortunately some engineering camera and MAHLI images from Sol 1364 were not fully transmitted, so the team worked quickly to rearrange the intended activities this week. Fortunately that also… Read More
