I'm SOWG Chair today, so I called in to enough of the operations planning teleconferences on Saturday to ensure that I was familiar with the goals for Sol 887.
I'm SOWG Chair today, so I called in to enough of the operations planning teleconferences on Saturday
to ensure that I was familiar with the goals for Sol 887. Most people
don't like working on weekends, but
I definitely felt that it was worthwhile to do as much as possible
while MSL is active on the surface of Mars. The activities planned for
Sols 885-886 went well, and we received images showing that the plasma
"plumes" created by the ChemCam laser blew holes
in the pile of drill tailings (e.g., just right of center in the image above ).
The Sol 887 plan focuses on delivering some of the
new drill sample to SAM and performing a SAM evolved gas analysis of
it. This requires so much power that we can't do much else on Sol 887,
and Sol 888 activities will be limited by the
availability of power. by Ken Herkenhoff
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
