Sol 1382-1383: Phobos Transit and Soliday

27 June 2016

Contact science in the Sol 1380-1381 plan went well, so we're back to driving in the weekend plan!

Sol 1382 will start with a Mastcam video of Phobos crossing in front of the sun, plus a multispectral observation of the brushed target “Koes”. ChemCam will then analyze the targets “Koes,” “Kongola,” and “Rundu” and Mastcam will document those observations. After that, we will drop off some of the “Oudam” sample to SAM for analysis.

On Sol 1383 the rover will drive and then collect the usual post-drive images, including an 8x1 mosaic along the side of the rover to study changing textures as we drive. We’ll also take some extra Navcam images of a crater in the distance. Later in the day, Mastcam has a couple of atmospheric observations and ChemCam has an auto-targeted observation.

The weekend plan is only two sols since Sunday is a “soliday” allowing Earth and Mars schedules to get back in sync. But the plan does include an early morning science block for Sol 1384 to collect some atmospheric observations with Navcam and Mastcam.

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