Sols 1497-1499: A Very Busy Weekend

21 October 2016

MAHLI image of the drill hole at Sebina

We’ve got quite a plan in store for the weekend, with every single instrument doing something, multiple arm activities, and a drive. Curiosity’s battery will be run all the way down to 35% which is quite rare, but necessary when there’s a lot to do!

Sol 1497 starts off with ChemCam observations of the targets “Okambonde” and “Nokaneng” and supporting Mastcam images. Next we lift APXS off of the tailings pile it had been analyzing and take some MAHLI images of the print that it left. MAHLI also will take some pictures of the first dump pile from the “Sebina” drill hole and APXS will analyze that dump pile overnight. Also on Sol 1497, ChemCam also has some “sky flats” where we take pictures of the sky to serve as a smooth reference image to use when processing RMIs.

On Sol 1498 MAHLI will take some pictures of the APXS print left in the Sebina dump pile, the REMS UV sensor, and then will take its own sky flats! ChemCam has a passive observation of the Sebina dump pile, followed by active observations of the dump pile, the drill tailings, and the targets “Coemba” and “Luma Cassao”. Mastcam will provide supporting images for the ChemCam and do some more monitoring of sand and dust on top of the rover deck.

In the morning of Sol 1499, SAM has an engineering test, and Navcam and Mastcam have a bunch of atmospheric observations. Later in the day, ChemCam will observe “Nokaneng” again. Originally this observation was going to be on a different target, but it turned out that the rover’s arm was going to be in the way. Mastcam will take some pictures of the “Quela” dump pile, another ChemCam support image of “Nokaneng” and some more atmospheric observations. Finally, we’ll do a short drive. Originally the plan was to continue along our traverse toward Mt. Sharp, but the team decided to change the drive a bit to get into position for some imaging next week. MARDI will take an image of the surface after the drive, and of course REMS and DAN will continue their normal ongoing data collection.

Phew! It was a marathon of a planning day, but it’s good to be getting the most science possible out of our hard-working rover!

by Ryan Anderson

-Ryan is a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL.

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