This image was taken by Mastcam: Left (MAST_LEFT) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 1757 (2017-07-16 09:26:50 UTC). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Left Mastcam image of bedrock and sand in front of MSL, acquired on 1756.

As the solar conjunction stand-down comes to an end, we are easing back into operations planning, focusing on Sol 1780, which will be planned in detail on Monday. There was no SOWG meeting today, so it was a very easy day for me as SOWG Chair: We discussed plans for next week and made a few changes. The focus of the Sol 1780 plan will be more diagnostic testing of the drill and our last opportunity to examine the current arm workspace using the remote sensing instruments. Tuesday will be a ‘soliday,’ with no tactical planning. The Wednesday (Sol 1781) plan was changed to move the drive earlier, allowing return of more of the data needed for Thursday (Sol 1782) planning. This required deleting the remote science block from the Sol 1781 plan, but a touch-and-go is still planned. We received the data we need to plan contact science and discussed potential targets. So we got a good head start on Sol 1780 planning, and look forward to returning to tactical operations next week!

Written by Kenneth Herkenhoff