This week most of the Curiosity team is headed out to California for a team meeting. I’m not at the meeting because I have a new baby at home, so I’ll be following along remotely!

Even though there’s a team meeting this week, we’re still keeping the rover busy. Over the weekend the rover drove ~28 meters, and the plan for Sol 1589 continues our slow ascent of Mt. Sharp. ChemCam is still marked “sick” while we sort out the error that occurred last week, so the Sol 1589 science block is heavy on Mastcam. After Navcam does an observation to watch for dust devils, Mastcam will collect mosaics of the targets “Cape Elizabeth,” “Mount Battle,” “Mount Blue,” and “Hematite Ridge.” After that, APXS will measure the composition of “Cape Elizabeth” and MAHLI will take supporting pictures. Once the arm activity is done the rover will drive about 30 meters, squeezing between a couple of large rocks, toward some bedrock that looks good for more contact science. After the drive, we’ll do some post-drive imaging.

Sol 1590 will start with an early morning Mastcam mosaic of the north face of “Ireson Hill”, and then the rest of the day will be dedicated to Navcam and Mastcam atmospheric observations.

By Ryan Anderson

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