I'm at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland for a ChemCam science team meeting this week.
I'm at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland for a ChemCam science team meeting this week. The location was chosen, in part, to make traveling easier overall--it's between France and JPL. Some of the team members are supporting MSL tactical operations so that the rest of us can focus on the meeting. It's nice to take a break from operations and think about ChemCam data analysis and interpretation, but difficult to keep up with what the rover is doing. One of the people who is working operations reported that the latest SAM analysis had to be pulled out of yesterday's plan because there wasn't enough power to do it and the decontamination heating that ChemCam needs every week or so. This must have been very frustrating for the operations team!
Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
