Our nearly nine year old rover occasionally has a hiccup and needs to reset and try again.
Our nearly nine year old rover occasionally has a hiccup and needs to reset and try again. This week, that happened with MAHLI and today we tried to recover those activities from earlier this week with contact science at “Festalemps” (a bedrock target for the dust removal tool and then APXS) and “Villars” (a textured rock target for APXS only). Once that is complete, along with some Mastcam imaging and ChemCam LIBS activity, we’ll drive away from this location.
We’re always looking ahead to our future activities and this plan is no exception as we’ll continue using ChemCam as a long distance spyglass for imaging the sulfate-rich geological unit (a portion of which is seen in this image) uphill from our current location.
This weekend will also continue a number of environmental science activities to search for clouds, measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and study the physical properties of dust particles through a Mastcam sky survey. We’re in the cloudy season on Mars currently, which will continue through the end of this (Earth) year. Martian clouds are very much like cirrus clouds here on Earth and are made of tiny water ice crystals.
Written by Scott Guzewich, Atmospheric Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
