Sol 921: Wrapping Up Diagnostics

9 March 2015

The engineers on the team have been working hard to understand the current fluctuation that caused the arm to halt on Sol 911, and they are expecting to wrap up their diagnostics this week! In the meantime, we on the science team have been keeping ourselves and the rover busy by using the remote sensing instruments.

In the morning of the sol 921 plan, Mastcam has a 14x4 mosaic of the target “Newspaper Rock” and ChemCam will be doing a calibration measurement and an observation of the “Telegraph Peak” drill hole. Navcam will also do some routine monitoring for dust devils.

In the afternoon, ChemCam will analyze two gray vein-like targets: “Old_Woman,” and “Marsden” and Mastcam will take supporting images of the ChemCam targets as usual. Navcam will then watch the sky and try to detect any cloud motion.

We’ve been getting some great data but everyone is eager to see the arm back in action soon so that CheMin can work on analyzing the sample from Telegraph Peak and the rover can leave Pahrump and head toward our first contact science target along “Artist’s Drive”!

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.