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Sol 16 Update on Curiosity from USGS Scientist Ken Herkenhoff: Wiggling Wheels

First the bad news: The REMS (meteorology experiment) team confirmed that
two out of 3 wind sensors on one of the two booms on the remote sensing
mast are permanently damaged and cannot be used. They are getting good
wind data from the other boom and are working on getting as much
information as possible from the one working sensor on the other boom. The
most likely explanation for the damage is that the descent rockets threw
dirt up on the top of MSL during landing, but it will be a while before we
can take pictures (using the camera on the arm) to confirm this. The other
sad news is that one of the leaders of the engineering team, Jake Matijevic
passed away last weekend. I worked with Jake on the Mars
Pathfinder/Sojourner project over 15 years ago, and again on the Mars
Exploration Rover project. I enjoyed every interaction I had with him, and
along with the rest of the MSL team will miss his contributions to the
latest, most ambitious rover project.

And now the good news: More cheers and applause today as MSL successfully
deployed its arm and wiggled its wheels in preparation for its first drive. The first drive
was planned today, and everyone is anxious to see the results tomorrow
morning. It will be a short (3 m) drive, then a turn in place followed by
another short drive, intended to check out the mobility system. If all
goes well, we will be able to plan a longer (up to 10 m) drive next. After
the drive is complete, the rover will take a bunch of images to determine
exactly where it ended up, and to allow more observations to be targeted
from the new location. ChemCam continues to work well, returning data of
better quality than expected. Roger Wiens, the ChemCam Principal
Investigator, will summarize early results during a press conference
tomorrow at JPL.

Ken

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center