Sol 176 Update on Curiosity from USGS Scientist Ken Herkenhoff: Anomaly

1 February 2013

Because the "drill-on-rock checkout" activity did not complete successfully on Sol 174, the MSL team had to work extra hard to determine how best to recover from the anomaly. Several engineers worked overnight in the rover testbed at JPL to understand the root cause of the problem in time to allow the tactical planning team to repeat the drill checkout on Sol 176 with only a minor change. Because this repeat affects what was tentatively planned for the next few sols, we had to quickly revise the long-term plan and consider how much power is needed in future sols before finalizing the Sol 176 plan. So it was a hectic day as SOWG Chair, but we were all glad the recovery was so quick.