22 August 2016

Our weekend drive halted a little bit early, but everything is looking good and we will continue to drive in today’s plan. We will start off the Sol 1439 plan with ChemCam observations of the layered rock targets “Quibala” and “Quibaxe”. Mastcam will then image Quibala, followed by a whole bunch of mosaics documenting the stratigraphy in the nearby buttes as well as the locations called “Quibaxe”, “Quipungo” and “Quicombo”. (I think the people choosing names today got a little carried away with names starting with Q...) After that the rover will drive, and we will follow up with post-drive imaging as well as a ChemCam AEGIS observation.

The following morning, Mastcam and Navcam have some atmospheric observations, and then in the afternoon ChemCam will analyze its calibration targets.

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