Sol 1461: Time to drill

14 September 2016

It’s always an exciting day on Mars when you prepare to drill another sample – an engineering feat that we’ve become so accustomed to that I sometimes forget how impressive this really is! Today’s plan just looks like a “typical” drill sol. First we’ll image the intended drill target with MAHLI, then we’ll do a full drill of the target “Quela”, followed by more documentation imaging with MAHLI. We’ll also acquire a ChemCam RMI image of the drill hole to help with upcoming targeting of the hole. Then the sample will be transferred to the scoop for inspection. Drilling is a pretty power-hungry activity, so there are no additional science observations in this plan, but we’re hoping to have more time for science tomorrow. In the meantime, we have plenty of new beautiful images to analyze.

Fingers crossed for another successful drill hole on Mars!

By Lauren Edgar

--Lauren is a Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the MSL science team.