With the weekend plan, we officially started our drillcampaign on the target "Sebina," so we will be staying in this location throughthe week.
With the weekend plan, we officially started our drill
campaign on the target “Sebina,” so we will be staying in this location through
the week. On Sol 1491 we dumped out the post-sieve sample from our previous
drill hole at “Quela”, and did some brushing on Sebina, followed by APXS and
MAHLI imaging.
On Sol 1492, the rover did a lot of remote sensing, starting
off with an early morning suite of atmospheric observations using Navcam and
Mastcam. Mastcam also had a 360 degree mosaic from our current location. In the
afternoon on Sol 1492, Mastcam had a multispectral observation of Sebina and a
couple more atmospheric dust measurements. ChemCam then had a passive sky
observation, followed by analysis of Sebina as well as to concretions named “Musserra”
and “Mussende”. This was followed by a Mastcam documentation mosaic of all
three targets.
And that was all! Even though this was a weekend plan which
would normally cover three sols, Sunday was a “soliday” which means there was
no planning. This allows our schedule on Earth to sync back up with Mars so we
can plan every day this week. 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
