Sol 890: CheMin Analysis

5 February 2015

MSL's batteries are almost fully charged, so the Sol 890 plan includes another CheMin measurement of the "Mojave2" drill sample. CheMin and SAM require more power than the other instruments, but we want to better understand the mineral composition of the drill sample before we dump the rest of the sample and drive away, so these observations have high priority. In addition, ChemCam and Mastcam observations of a nearby target named "Searles" are planned, along with images of distant targets. I'm not scheduled SOWG Chair today, but of course I wanted to call in to the operations teleconference to see how things are going, and was glad to see that the Sol 889 activities we planned yesterday completed successfully. For example, this ChemCam RMI image shows the hole the laser made in the dump pile.

by Ken Herkenhoff