The plan for last weekend included driving on 2 sols.
The plan for last weekend included driving on 2 sols. Unfortunately, the first drive, on Sol 455, was aborted due to a wheel stall. There was also an electrical problem, so the Sol 458 plan will be devoted to getting the engineering data needed to recover from this problem. The rover is in a stable configuration but no science activities will be planned until tomorrow.
I was happy to see the announcement that features on Mars have been named in honor of Bruce Murray, former JPL director and my thesis adviser at Caltech in the 1980s. I can’t wait to see what “Murray Buttes” look like up close when MSL gets there! It’s too bad Bruce won’t get to see the pictures of these features–he would have loved them!
Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
