Earth planning date: Monday, October 9, 2023
After the drive this weekend, Curiosity has arrived at another light-toned band that we hope to evaluate for drilling before solar conjunction begins next month. We have some light-toned, slightly nodular rocks in our workspace serving as potential drill target candidates. The goal today at the start of planning was to do contact science with APXS and MAHLI and assess targets for drilling and subsequently investigation with CheMin and SAM. We unfortunately determined that the positioning of the rover's front left wheel precluded drilling, so we will be bumping to a better position to set us up for success if we decide to proceed with our drill campaign later this week.
There is no use of the arm in this plan, so there are no MAHLI or APXS observations. The first sol of our plan has a morning science block with a Navcam line-of-sight observation to assess dust in the atmosphere, Mastcam extension of our current workspace, and ChemCam LIBS observation of light-toned bedrock target "Three Sirens" with Mastcam documentation. The afternoon science block includes a Navcam cloud shadow movie, Navcam cloud zenith movie, and Mastcam solar tau.
The second sol of the plan has another morning science block, including a Navcam suprahorizon movie to characterize the atmosphere, Navcam dust devil movie, ChemCam LIBS observation of dark and flaky bedrock target "Yokuts," ChemCam long-distance mosaic to continue the documentation of Peace Vallis, and Mastcam documentation of "Yokuts." We then have our mobility backbone, where we hope to reposition Curiosity to enable an option to drill later in the week, followed by post-drive imaging. Later, we have another science block including a Navcam dust devil survey, Navcam cloud zenith movie, and Navcam suprahorizon movie. Finally, we have a MARDI observation to round out this two-sol plan.
Written by Abigail Knight
from NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Mission Updates https://ift.tt/TJ6GEul
Comments
Post a Comment