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14 August 2016
Sols 1429-1431: Power limited
MSL drove over 45 meters on Sol 1428, closer to the Murray Buttes. I helped select ChemCam targets again this morning, and was glad to see that some of them made it into the weekend plan. The primary constraint on planning today ended up being power–we tried to fit more into the plan than the rover’s batteries could support! But we were still able to include a lot of good …
11 August 2016
Sol 1428: Walking *and* chewing gum on Mars
The tactical team decided that driving has higher priority, so critical post-drive imaging is focused on supporting mobility planning. Overnight, CheMin will perform another analysis of the Marimba drill sample, to improve the quality of mineralogical data.
10 August 2016
Sol 1427: Driving away
After successfully completing the drilling activities at Marimba, it’s time to get back on the road. Today’s plan is focused on targeted remote sensing and driving. The plan starts with a Navcam movie to monitor the atmosphere, followed by Mastcam documentation of several autonomously selected ChemCam targets. Then we’ll acquire a couple of ChemCam observations and Mastcam multispectral imaging of the Marimba pre-sieve dump pile before driving away. After a short …
9 August 2016
Sol 1426: Bringing in the data at Marimba
Today’s plan is focused on retrieving CheMin data from the overnight analysis of the Marimba drill sample and MAHLI and APXS observations of the drill hole and cuttings. The plan starts with a short science block for atmospheric monitoring, followed by CheMin data readout. Then we’ll do a short Mastcam change detection activity before dumping the pre-sieved drill sample. After we dump the sample, we’ll acquire Mastcam, Navcam and MAHLI …
8 August 2016
Sol 1421: Determining drill activities at Marimba
On Sol 1420 we planned a full drill hole on the target “Marimba” to characterize the composition of the Murray mudstone in this location. However, we came in early this morning to find that the drill hole didn’t penetrate very far into this rock target, as seen in the above MAHLI image. We’re trying to evaluate why this drill hole is different, and what prevented the drill from completing as …
3 August 2016
Sol 1420: Drilling Marimba
The Sol 1419 activities completed successfully, including cleaning the remaining Oudam sample out of CHIMRA. So the focus of the Sol 1420 plan is drilling into the Marimba bedrock target. But first, MAHLI will image the “noseprint” of the APXS contact sensor in the Oudam dump pile and the drill target from various distances. After the drilling has completed, the drill bit and the new drill hole will be imaged …
2 August 2016
Sol 1419: Cleaning CHIMRA
Again, the tactical operations team was able to squeeze some additional science activities into the plan.
25 July 2016
Sols 1412-1413: No touch, just Go!
The Right Mastcam will also acquire a 14-image mosaic of the Murray Buttes early in the morning, and we finally were able to plan the long-distance RMI mosaic!
24 July 2016
Sols 1409-1411: Finishing up at Bimbe
I am starting to think this observation is cursed! I’ll have to try again next week.
21 July 2016
Sol 1405-1408: Bimbe Conglomerates
“…we found ourselves in an awesome place to study the blocks and conglomerates at ‘Bimbe.’”
