Sol 1436: Smooth sailing

19 August 2016

We are making good progress with our drives (we’re already approaching our next drill site!) and the road in front of us is looking pretty smooth. As usual we have a busy weekend planned. Sol 1436 starts off with ChemCam and Mastcam of the layered rock targets “Conda” and “Savungo”. Mastcam then has a mosaic of one of the buttes, and another mosaic of an interesting feature within the Murray formation called “Chitado”. Later in the day, MAHLI will take a look at the targets “Biula” and “Conda”. Then Curiosity will brush the dust off of Conda and do an overnight APXS measurement. CheMin will also do another analysis of Marimba2 overnight.

On Sol 1437, ChemCam has a passive observation of Conda and an RMI mosaic of the target “Chicala”. Mastcam will also take a picture of Chicala and do an atmospheric measurement. In the morning on Sol 1438, Mastcam has a big 16x3 mosaic of the Murray Buttes, and Navcam has an atmospheric observation. Then the rover will have a long drive (60-90 m) followed by the usual post-drive imaging.

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