As you can see, our mini-drill over the weekend went well, so we are GO for drilling “Big Sky” on sol 1119! The hope is that this location will provide a good sample of the “typical” rock in the area to compare with some of the interesting alteration we’ve been seeing. Along with the drilling, there will be a bunch of MAHLI documentation images of the hole from varying distances and angles.

On sol 1120, ChemCam will target the drill tailings, along with the targets “Devil’s Basin”, “Livingston,” and “Deadwood.” Mastcam will document the drill hole and all of the ChemCam targets. Then, later in the day on sol 1120, Navcam and Mastcam both have some atmospheric observations. And of course, in the background DAN, RAD, and REMS will be doing their routine monitoring as always.

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.