Sol 1646: Traction control driving
23 March 2017MSL drove a little over 20 meters on Sol 1645, toward the big sand dune to the east that is the subject of a science campaign that will hopefully start next week. Another drive toward the east is planned for Sol 1646, with post-drive imaging to set up for contact science. The… Read More
Sol 1645: Searching for dust devils
22 March 2017The APXS will still be deployed on The Hop early on Sol 1645, and to avoid using battery power to heat up the arm, we'll wait until early afternoon to move it out of the way. So we had to pick ChemCam and Right Mastcam targets that would not be obscured by the arm: A bright vein… Read More
Sol 1644: Staying put
21 March 2017The Sol 1644 plan focuses on arm activities, because the volume of data expected to be relayed via the MRO and Mars Odyssey orbiters in time for planning tomorrow is too small to allow both a drive and drill diagnostic tests. So the tactical science team took advantage of the… Read More
Sol 1640-1642: Better Late than Never!
21 March 2017Sorry for the delayed posting! In the rush to get ready for the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), I forgot to post about the sol 1640-42 plan. Better late than never! The weekend plan started with some Navcam atmospheric observations, followed by ChemCam on the bedrock target… Read More
Sol 1643: First half of long-baseline stereo
20 March 2017MSL drove about 28 meters toward the south on Sol 1642 and again is in an area with Murray Formation bedrock blocks surrounded by dark sand. I helped plan ChemCam observations today, and we settled on a target called "Vinalhaven" at the left side of the layered bedrock exposure seen at… Read More
Sol 1639: Onward to Ogunquit Beach
16 March 2017Planning was challenging this morning because of some network issues at JPL, but the team figured out how to work around the problem and still managed to put together a good plan! We’ve been at Stop 3 of the dune campaign (now known as “Southern Cove”) for a couple of sols, so in… Read More
Sol 1638: Busy Day for MAHLI
15 March 2017Today we are continuing our investigation of Stop #3 of the Bagnold Dune campaign. We start off with some MAHLI images of the APXS targets “Ripogenus” and “Spragueville” from yesterday. For these images, the MAHLI dust cover will stay closed. Then ChemCam will analyze the… Read More
Sol 1637: Stop 3
14 March 2017Yesterday’s short drive was successful, so we started today with the rover parked at stop #3 of the dune campaign and the rover’s arm up in the “ready out” position. The Sol 1637 plan starts out with a couple of Mastcam atmospheric observations, followed by ChemCam analysis… Read More
Sol 1636: Another Early Morning
13 March 2017Thankfully I wasn’t actually on duty today, because with daylight savings time Arizona is now on West-coast time, and planning started at 6:30am! In any case, the weekend plan was successful, and put us close to the third stop of the current campaign to study the Bagnold Dunes. The Sol 1636… Read More
Sols 1634-1635: Back to nominal MAHLI planning
10 March 2017MSL drove about 29 meters toward the south on Sol 1632, and is in a good position for weekend activities. The MAHLI images taken on Sol 1632 look good, and the dust cover is working properly, so MAHLI is ready to return to nominal operations! The tactical planning team therefore… Read More
