Sols 1348-1349: A smoother route

20 May 2016

Our drive on Sol 1346 was successful and brought us to a location with a view of the rugged ridges of the area we’ve been calling “Fracture Town”. In fact, from our current location, we decided that those ridges may be a bit too rough for comfort, so we are planning a slight change in course that will take us a bit south of our original path. The new path should be smoother and will also give us a better view of the contact between the Stimson and Murray units.

But before we set off on this revised path, we have some science to do at our current location! On Sol 1348, ChemCam has observations on the targets “Meob”, “Nomeib”, and “Munutum”. Mastcam will take documentation images of these targets as well as the one observed by ChemCam using AEGIS after our last drive. Mastcam will also observe the targets “Hudoab”, “Witputz”, “Sandamap”, plus a mosaic of Fracture Town. Once the remote sensing is done, we will brush off the target Meob, taking MAHLI images before and after. MAHLI will also take some images of the target Nomeib. That will be followed by a quick APXS observation of Nomeib and an overnight observation on Meob.

On Sol 1349 we have some more targeted science! ChemCam will observe targets “Annental” and “Nainais”, and in addition to documentation images of those targets, Mastcam will also do a multispectral observation of Meob. Navcam has an atmospheric observation as well. After that, the rover will drive and do standard post-drive imaging, plus a ChemCam AEGIS observation and a MARDI image of the ground beneath us.

Even though that is only two sols, it will take us through the weekend, since Saturday is a “soliday” which allows our times to synch back up with Mars time.

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