Sols 1521-1522: Making progress toward the next drill site

14 November 2016

Sol 1519 Navcam

Curiosity continues to drive across bumpy terrain of the Murray formation.  Over the weekend, Curiosity drove ~36 m, making good progress toward our next drill site.  Today’s two-sol plan starts with several ChemCam observations to assess the chemistry of the local bedrock and veins.  We’ll also acquire a long-distance ChemCam RMI mosaic to examine layers in Mt. Sharp.  Then Curiosity will acquire Mastcam images to document the ChemCam targets as well as to evaluate the stratification exposed in nearby outcrops.  We’ll also take several Navcam images to search for dust devils and monitor cloud activity.  After the drive, we’ll take Navcam and Mastcam images of the workspace to prepare for contact science in the next plan.  In the afternoon, Curiosity will acquire a ChemCam AEGIS observation.  In the early morning of Sol 1522, Curiosity will perform a few environmental monitoring observations to evaluate atmospheric opacity and to search for clouds.  I’ll be on duty on Wednesday, so I’m looking forward to a fun day of contact science!

By Lauren Edgar

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