2 min read

Sol 923: Getting out of Dodge

The plan for today, as our SOWG (Science Operations Working
Group) chair put it, is to "get out of Dodge"! We will be driving to a location
where we can do "full MAHLI wheel imaging" in the coming sols.

During the drive, the rover will stop long enough for
Mastcam to get an image of the drill tailings to document where we placed the
APXS overnight. We’ll also get a Mastcam image of a wind-blown ripple to see
what the grain sizes are. After the drive, we have Mastcam observations of the
candidate contact science target "Garden City" along with routine post-drive
images from Navcam. There will also be
several standard environmental monitoring measurements.

Tomorrow I’m on duty as the "Keeper of the Plan" for the
geology and mineralogy group and it looks like there will be time for lots of
remote sensing science from our new location, so it should be a busy day! by Ryan Anderson --Ryan is a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL. 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 Ryan Anderson, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center