Sols 828-829: Looking Closer at the Chinle Outcrop

3 December 2014

Today all three USGS bloggers were on MSL operations! I was on duty as the Science Payload Downlink Lead (sPDL) for ChemCam, meaning that it was my job to check all of the science data that we received to make sure the data looks good and to do a quick analysis of the results. Lauren was the Keeper of the Plan (KOP) for the geology theme group, meaning that she helped put together the plan of geology tasks that the rover will do in the Sol 828-829 plan (a sol is a Mars day). And Ken was the Science Operations Working Group (SOWG) chair, meaning that he led the SOWG meeting and made sure that the plan satisfied the goals of the science team while also staying within the constraints on power, data, safety, complexity, etc.

This morning was a little more “exciting” than normal because bad weather on Earth caused a disruption in our downlink of data from Mars, so for a little while it looked like we would not have any of the images from the end of the drive to help us plan sols 828-829. (We can’t do much if we don’t know what the rover’s surroundings look like!) It also meant that our ChemCam data was missing. But in the end, the data did arrive so that I could assess the ChemCam data and planning could proceed.

On sol 828, ChemCam will do a passive observation of the sky to measure the abundance of different molecules in the atmosphere, and Navcam (the navigation cameras) will take a movie to watch for clouds forming over Mt. Sharp. Also in the morning block, Mastcam has a mosaic of the “Chinle” outcrop to look at the fine-scale layering.

Later on the same sol, there are a series of observations of Chinle by MAHLI (the Mars Hand Lens Imager – a close-up, high-resolution color camera). These observations will look at the layers in Chinle from a different angle and at a higher resolution than is possible with the mast cameras. While the arm is out, we will also brush off the target “Pickhandle” on Chinle using the Dust Removal Tool (DRT).

On Sol 829, Mastcam will do a routine “clast survey” observation to characterize the loose rocks near the rover, and ChemCam will run a diagnostic test of the focusing laser that has been acting up recently.

By Ryan Anderson

-Ryan Anderson is a planetary scientist and developer 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.