11 May 2018

Sol 2048: Successful Bump

Posted by Ryan Anderson

Today is the third and final day that I’m serving as SOWG Chair this week at JPL, and I was happy to see that the bump we originally planned for Sol 2046 completed successfully on Sol 2047, placing the rover in a good position for contact science on a couple of bright blocks in front of the rover. So we’re planning to brush two targets on the larger block, named ‘Bilbert’ and ‘Giants Range,’ before MAHLI images them and APXS measures their chemistry at night. Before the arm activities, ChemCam will shoot its laser at Giants Range and targets ‘Vermillion’ and ‘Lac La Croix’ on nearby blocks. Because the stowed arm partly blocks our view of the part of the arm workspace closest to the rover, we’ll acquire a Navcam stereo pair and a single Left Mastcam color image of that area after the arm is deployed. These images will be useful in planning more contact science this weekend.

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center