Sol 922: Arm in Action

10 March 2015

Good news! We’re allowed to use the arm again! The engineers have done all the diagnostics needed, and so today’s plan was dominated by arm activities for science.

In the morning of sol 922, there is a short science block during which ChemCam and Mastcam will analyze the target “Whitmore_2” on the “Newspaper Rock” outcrop to see if it is similar to the “Whale Rock” outcrop that we studied previously. After that, the rover will transfer some of the drill sample that it collected before the arm fault into CheMin. Once the sample is inside CheMin and ready to be analyzed overnight to figure out what minerals it contains, the arm will place APXS on the pile of tailings near the drill hole. This will allow APXS to do an overnight measurement of the chemical composition of the tailings pile.

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.