11 May 2015
Sols 980-982: Dodging Sand, Updating ChemCam
by Ryan Anderson The Sol 978 drive stopped after going only a couple meters instead of the expected ~19 meters because Curiosity detected that its wheels were slipping in the sand. The rover periodically takes pictures of its surroundings while driving to make sure that it is actually moving forward and its wheels are not just spinning in place. This was a lesson learned years ago when the Opportunity rover …
7 May 2015
Sol 978-979: Jocko Chute
by Ryan Anderson The sol 976 drive was successful and we are close to “Jocko Chute” (our informal name for the saddle point west of Jocko Butte). In the sol 978 plan, we have a ChemCam LIBS observation of a patch of exposed bedrock called “Big Salmon”, followed by lots of Mastcam images. There is a 14×3 mosaic of some hills in the direction of our drive, some single frame …
5 May 2015
Sols 976-977: Onward to Jocko Butte
by Ryan Anderson With our weekend contact science done, it’s time to hit the road again. The sol 976 plan includes some final Mastcam mosaics of the interesting outcrops that we have been studying, plus a Mastcam multispectral observation of the target “Albert” that ChemCam zapped over the weekend. After that, we will drive about 60 m, to a location west of “Jocko Butte”. After the drive we have post-drive …
3 May 2015
Sol 973-975: Albert, Bigfork, and Charity
by Ken Herkenhoff MSL is in a good position for contact science observations on an interesting outcrop of sedimentary rock, so the rover will be busy this weekend! We had to change the timing of the arm activities a bit to optimize the illumination of MAHLI targets, so it was a busy morning for me as SOWG Chair but I’m happy with the way the plan turned out. On …
29 April 2015
Sol 971-972: Approaching outcrop
by Ken Herkenhoff This morning the MSL science team used all of the available data to decide whether to approach one of the nearby outcrops or drive away. Ultimately we decided to approach the closer of the large outcrops in front of the rover to set up for contact science this weekend. Planning is still “restricted,” so we planned two sols of activities today. ChemCam and Mastcam will observe …
27 April 2015
Sol 969-970: Studying Mt. Shields
by Ryan Anderson Our drive on sol 967 covered almost 90 meters, putting us in front of some interesting stratigraphy at “Mt. Shields”, an outcrop along our drive down “Logan’s Run”. In the sol 969-970 plan, we have lots of Mastcam and ChemCam studying the outcrop. On sol 969, Mastcam has a 24×2 stereo mosaic and a 6×3 stereo mosaic of parts of Mt. Shields. Then, on sol 970, ChemCam …
26 April 2015
Sol 966-968: More Driving
by Ken Herkenhoff The rover drove 32 meters on Sol 964, to a position that gave us a good view of the terrain ahead and outcrops of interest. So a longer (~90 m) drive is planned for Sol 967 after ChemCam and Mastcam observe nearby targets dubbed “Pablo” and “Pauline” on Sol 966. Mastcam, Navcam and REMS will also observe the atmosphere. I’m MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, and planned …
23 April 2015
Sols 964-965: Logan’s Run? Or just a short dash…
By Lauren Edgar Although we had planned a drive of up to 48 m towards “Logan’s Run” on Sol 963, the drive ended early after only 17 m due to the detection of a nearby hazard (a large rock). This was the first time in a while that we were using autonav for driving. The good news is that the hazard was detected, and the events are understood. It just means …
22 April 2015
Sol 963: Making a run for it
By Lauren Edgar After cruising through Artist’s Drive, Curiosity set her sights on the next pass, known as “Logan Pass.” However, the science team realized that there’s an interesting outcrop to west of “Logan Pass,” which may help us to understand how these rocks relate to the section that we investigated at the Pahrump Hills. So we decided to make a run for it, and take a quick trip over …
21 April 2015
Sol 962: MAHLI wheel imaging
by Ken Herkenhoff The Sol 960 drive went as planned, for a total of over 102 meters! The rover has driven far enough since the last full set of MAHLI images were acquired that it’s time to take another full set to look for more wheel wear. So my focus today as MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead was on planning wheel images. MARDI images are typically taken at each wheel-imaging position …
