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12 December 2016
Sols 1548-1549: Still at Precipice
The American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting is happening this week, so many scientists on the team (your trusty bloggers included!) are either in San Francisco or on their way here. Tomorrow morning is the main session discussing the latest Curiosity results, and there will be a press conference at 11:30am (California time) that you can watch live!
9 December 2016
Sols 1545-1547: Moving again!
It’s great to be moving again with a very full weekend plan!
8 December 2016
Sol 1544: Diagnostics and Remote Sensing
…In the meantime, the science team is getting ready for the American Geophysical Union conference next week, so we had some great science discussion presentations that will be shared at the meeting next week!
7 December 2016
Sol 1543: Motor controller fault
Early in the morning of Sol 1544, Navcam will search for clouds and dust devils, Mastcam will measure dust in the atmosphere, and both cameras will re-attempt the photometry observations that were planned yesterday.
6 December 2016
Sol 1542: More drill testing
Curiosity’s ChemCam will observe Hunters Beach again to further investigate the the chemical variations that LIBS measured there previously. ChemCam and the Right Mastcam will also observe bedrock targets “Sargent Mountain” and “Youngs Mountain.” Finally, Navcam and Mastcam will take one more set of images at 8 AM on Sol 1543, to complete the photometry dataset started on Sol 1537.
5 December 2016
Sol 1541: Change detection
This is really important for planning MAHLI observations, because we’ve noticed a lot of movement of fines through this area at this time of year, and we’ve mostly been taking MAHLI images with the dust cover closed to protect the instrument. If we can better understand when and where the sand is most active, we can better plan MAHLI observations, and we can improve our understanding of the eolian environment!
3 December 2016
Sols 1538-1540: Targeted Remote Sensing
We’re still at the “Precipice” site, assessing the composition and sedimentary structures in the Murray bedrock and carrying out some long distance observations.
1 December 2016
Sol 1537: Drill fault
The drill failed, so onto other science while the drill fault is studied.
30 November 2016
Sol 1536: Drilling "Precipice"
We expect that the Precipice target is soft enough that the experiment will go well, but of course we won’t know until we try! Drilling and associated imaging will require enough power and time that additional observations could not be added to the plan.
29 November 2016
Sol 1535: Cross-contamination experiment
It’s a “cross-contamination experiment” designed to see if the vibration didn’t do a complete job back when we first drilled Sebina. Lots of images of the sieve and other parts of CHIMRA will be taken to verify that the system is clean. These activities will take a fair amount of time and power, but we were able to squeeze a few remote science observations into the plan…
