Earth planning date: Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Here on Earth, it's Valentine's Day, and I've been thinking about our new workspace a bit like a box of chocolates. When we come to a new workspace, much like opening up a box of chocolates, there's a lot to look at — different textures, different colours, different shapes — and you have to decide what you're going to start with, what might be the tastiest, and what you may want to leave in the box. Sometimes, there's things you know you like (I can never go wrong with a salted caramel), and sometimes there are new flavours to be discovered. Mars certainly gifted us with a great box of treats today, and the plan brings us familiar sights from sols past and new targets to sink our (metaphorical) teeth into.
One of these is our contact science target, 'Horseshoe Meadows,' a section of bedrock (which you can see in the image, right above where 'Curiosity' is written) that is redder than what we've been seeing recently. After APXS takes a look, we move into our main science block which starts with ChemCam LIBs on a different bedrock target, 'Post Corral Creek.' ChemCam will then set its sights further afield to a familiar target, Fascination Turret, which Mastcam examined on Monday. Mastcam gets its own treats today, starting with two mosaics of the upper Gediz Vallis Ridge and an old friend, the Orinoco Butte, which has been a regular companion of Curiosity for many, many sols. Mastcam will also join ChemCam in imaging 'Post Corral Creek.' The science block finishes up with a deck monitoring image. We've been taking these recently before and after every drive to see how the dust that collects on the rover deck changes because of things like driving or wind. After the science block, we return to Horseshoe Meadows with the DRT and MAHLI, and then it's time to bid farewell to this workspace and drive away.
The sol doesn't end there, though. After the drive we have another science block to sneak in some later afternoon environmental activities. These include a Mastcam observation and Navcam line of sight to look at dust in the atmosphere and a dust devil survey to look for dust being lifted from the ground as well as a cloud movie.
Our second sol only has one science block a little before noon which includes a ChemCam AEGIS activity, our post-drive deck monitoring, another cloud movie and a long dust devil movie. Once that's wrapped up Curiosity will nap for the rest of the sol in preparation for a weekend plan, hopefully full of more treats from Mars.
Written by Alex Innanen
from NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Mission Updates https://ift.tt/X7NwkEd
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