Sols 1548-1549: Still at Precipice

Unfortunately, one of the drill diagnostics early in the plan indicated a problem, which prevented most of the other activities for the weekend (including the arm motion and drive) from happening. So that means that for the Sol 1548-1549 plan the rover is still sitting at Precipice. In addition to more drill diagnostics, ChemCam has a long-distance RMI mosaic of “Ireson Hill”, as well as two additional observations of the target “Blue Hill”. Mastcam will document the Blue Hill observations, and take an image of a butte named “Oak Hill”.

Meanwhile, the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting is happening this week, so many scientists on the team (your trusty bloggers included!) are either in San Francisco or on their way here. Tomorrow morning is the main session discussing the latest Curiosity results, and there will be a press conference at 11:30am (California time) that you can watch live!

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