Sols 1346-1347: Onward to Fracture Town

18 May 2016

We are coming up on the edge of Naukluft plateau (again!). The plan for Sol 1346 starts off with ChemCam observations of the targets “Etusis” and “Etiro”, to continue measuring the variations in silica abundance around large fractures. Mastcam has a context image of these two targets, plus a mosaic looking ahead to an area we’ve been calling “Fracture Town”. After that, the rover will drive and do standard post-drive imaging, plus CheMin will do another analysis of the Okoruso sample.

On Sol 1347, the rover has a number of atmospheric observations, plus a ChemCam observation using the AEGIS software to target a nice patch of bedrock automatically. This is a new capability, and it’s really nice to be able to get some data after we drive without having Earth in the loop!

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