Sol 673 – 675 Update On Curiosity From USGS Scientist Ken Herkenhoff: Out of the Ellipse

I'm MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, planning Sols 673-675 to get MSL through the weekend. It turned out to be a busy day, as the Sol 672 did not complete nominally. A 101-meter drive was planned, but after traversing 82 meters the rover stopped because it determined that it was slipping too much. As the vehicle was crossing some sandy ripples , the wheels encountered soft sand and the rover automatically detected that progress was not being made at the expected rate, and correctly halted the drive. Coincidentally, the rover stopped right on the landing ellipse, a major mission milestone! The vehicle was designed to be able to traverse far enough to drive out of the region defined by the uncertainty in the landing location, and has now achieved that laudable goal.


We had been planning to acquire a full set of wheel images on Sol 673, but the current rover location is not suitable for this activity, so we decided to plan contact science instead. MAHLI images of a target Sourdough will be taken before placing the APXS on it and integrating overnight, in parallel with SAM scrubber cleaning. On Sol 674, the rover will drive out of the ripple, then turn around to get a better look at the location it is at now. The plan for the final sol (675) is dominated by cleaning of SAM's getter and trap.


Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

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